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Comment by saltcured | Hacker News Reader

Have you yet progressed to y'all being singular and all y'all being plural?

No. As far as I can tell, singular "y'all", when it exists, is an implied plural. What you might hear as singular "y'all" is, say, when you go into a restaurant and say "do y'all have Coke?" to the server - that doesn't refer to just the server but to the restaurant as a whole. But I'm not a linguist and also I don't spend much time among people with heavier Southern dialect, so you shouldn't believe what I say.

No, you've got it right. A lot of people trying to be cute and make southern language seem more alien than it is are over-"correcting."

When southern people say y'all to one person, they're really addressing you and your family (even though you might be the only one there.) If I ask "how y'all doing?" I want to know how you and yours are doing.

> If I ask "how y'all doing?" I want to know how you and yours are doing.

I just want people to stop asking me how I'm doing if they don't care.

It took me an embarrassingly long time to figure out that "How's it going" is a greeting, not an interrogative, and I want that change undone forever.

What's interesting is you may reply, "hey, how are you?", and lots of people may be satisfied with that. Neither party actually answers how they are, yet the handshake is complete.

I refuse out of principle, but agree, that works.

I just use "Howdy".

Which is short for "How do you do?"

Good point! I guess my principles only extend so far.

Don't forget to end the conversation with "God be with ye". Or "A Dios".

I've had it explained to me as a western/eastern divide among southerners. As you head through Texas, more people think you need "all y'all" for plurals.

That's something those western southerners told me. I don't know if a linguist would agree, but that seems to be the understanding of some actual language users...

All I know is that there is a second boundary somewhere through TX, NM, and AZ, because I've never met a native Californian who would say "y'all" non ironically.

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