"Y'all" has wider reach than this map suggests, particularly in black and queer communities.
Youse LOL, almost lost it when I heard it one time
Where's my fellow "yo'd'll"s at
Your what now
People where I am from call everyone "you guys" - men, women, trans, doesn't matter, everyone is just "you guys" even when it's a woman addressing a group of women.
The literal meaning isn't gender neutral, but in actual practice, it 100% is.
As for "y'all" or "you all", I don't see how it could possibly be interpreted as offensive to any gender.
The literal meaning isn’t gender neutral, but in actual practice, it 100% is.
Unless you can ask a straight man how many guys he's slept with, it isn't gender neutral, no matter how resistant to this fact you are.
I don't see the issue with using the term "guys" in the plural when referring to a group regardless of sex. That would align with the definition of the word. I'm pretty sure that's how they meant it.
"You People" is the one to be avoided
"howdy fuckers" is the opposite as it sounds bad on paper but in practice it goes over well (except with middle aged moms)
"G'day cunts" goes over either extremely well or extremely poorly, with no in-between
I'm from "you guys" but I've lived in "y'all" and now I'm forever team "y'all," regardless of where I'm living.
It's the best export from the south, except maybe Texas brisket and pecan pie.
...y'all roughly correlates with coke, although there are some deep pockets of soda-water in the back country...
My boss says “you’ll”
grow up more on the west side of the US and I'd hear y'all every day lol. but more relevant, I don't think I've ever met a trans friend who would ever get offended being called y'all, I know I wouldn't haha
P.S. hey trans people, y'all cool asf <3
I mean, neither "you" nor "all" is a gendered term in any way
Maine I think loops back around to y’all territory…
As someone that grew up in y'all territory in Kansas, it's wildly easy to connect to people from Maine!
Y'all is the opposite of offensive for trans people. I lived in the south for a while, and I now use y'all specifically to be inclusive. I wouldn't say "you guys" is offensive to trans women, but I would say for me and likely other trans women it briefly brings to mind being misgendered in the past, so I would call it a small kindness to ube as gender neutral as possible.
Yup, I specifically use y'all and recommend it to people (like my parents) to replace gendered phrases, and I'm not from the y'all zone.
Still up for debate, "dude" and "hun/hon".
*I'm a trans woman also
As a cis male, I've exclusively been called "Hun / Hon" by waitresses and gay men.
I've not been offended by any of them.
"y'all" fills a legitimately useful gap the English language has. Other languages have a word like this.
Edit: also something cool I just found out, some languages have a way to disinguish "we" (you and I), and "we" (me and the rest of us, not you). It's called clusivity and is missing from European languages. Many indigenous languages of the Americas and Oceania have this, as well as Vietnamese and northern dialects of Mandarin.
English used to be like other European languages too. We had thou/thee for singular, and you/ye for plural, and for respectful singular. Eventually, people began using it as respectful singular for everyone, and so it just became singular and plural, eclipsing thou/thee. Around this time, the you/ye accusative/nominative distinction was also lost, so now we just have you.
If you're curious, the you/ye distinction worked like this: "you" was used for the subject (the doer) of the sentence, and "ye" was used for the object (the done to). you/ye are analogous to I/me.
"You come with me." (plural you)
"I come with ye." (plural ye)
As a result of the loss of thou, we also lost the conjugation of verbs related to it, like "art" instead of "are", and "-st" or "-est" for other verbs ("goest", "thinkst", etc). It used to be that "are" was only for plural pronouns, but now both "you" and "they" can be singular.
And if you're curious about what happened to "-eth", evidence suggests this was for a long time a typographic feature, and it was pronounced "-s" as it is today. It was used exactly like "-s". "He thinketh" would have been pronounced "he thinks".
Y'all reminds me of the bible belt. I'm not transgender but I am queer and now and then it makes me uncomfortable.
Queer people who live in the bible belt still say "y'all". It literally means "you all".
We need a better second person plural in English. Y'all works but its a big language gap
Hey...
Folks
Friends
Comrades
Everyone
People
Pals
You motley crew
Weirdos
Siblings
Fuckers
..how you doing, wanna go to the movies?
(this is by no means exhaustive list, the point is there are plenty of existing and perfectly acceptable alternatives, pick one, or more, and get comfortable with it)
I've heard people say "yous" before.
I know. I hate it. I don't know why
I'm not from the south and use "y'all" all the time. Find it very useful for filling in a gap that English has and slightly faster than saying "you all". Its gender neutral in my opinion.
Never once thought of it as offensive.
You forgot "Yinz"
Yinz goin aht n abaht in dahntahn Picksburgh to watch da Stillers game?
I would have thought that “y’all” is even more so gender neutral and therefore less offensive/more accepted. It’s a contraction of “you all” right?
Yeah, I’m in the “you guys” zone and I say y’all, it’s always better received.
Yall is the genderless southern hospitality greeting.
No bullshit no hate. Only yall
I've used y'all intentionally as a gender neutral term for years in the south.
Lately I've even seen "y'all means all" used as a pride slogan in the south.
Awesome! Thanks comrade.
If you live on the line, or move north/west, it's now "you all".
People who don't even live in the USA saying "y'all" is pure pain
Why? I am not living in the us but it's a useful phrase.
Trust me there are many more areas that say y'all
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