You all and Y'all

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This article explains the difference between Ya'll and You All. Word to the wise, saying "You All" screams "I am not southern". See below:

Singularly Good Southernism "Is Ya'll"


A Bill Clinton aide was on television talking about the inauguration of his boss a couple of weeks from now.
He said the theme of the event is, "Y'all come."

I thought "y'all" might be thrust upon the public with the election of Clinton and his running mate, Al Gore.

Clinton, of course, is from Arkansas and Gore is from Tennessee. I don't count either man as having all the characteristics of a true Southerner, since both passed up their state universities for Georgetown and the Ivy League.

But both obviously understand y'all and use it often. I heard Gore unleash many y'alls during the campaign.

Y'all is, to be sure, a Southern thing that most people living outside the South don't understand.

I have long been involved in y'allism. I find it a charming word that is pure Southern, but because it is misunderstood and will be used a great deal during the next four years of the Clinton administration, I thought it would be wise to discuss y'all at some length.

The biggest mistake people from outside the South make in the y'all area is they don't think we say y'all at all.

They think we say "you all."

A Southerner visiting the North surely will be mocked the first time he or she opens his or her mouth and out comes a Southern accent.

Northerners will giggle and ask, "So where are you all from?"

I answer by saying, "I all is from Atlanta."

For some unknown reason, Northerners think Southerners use you all in the singular sense. How many movies have I seen where a Northerner is trying to do a Southern accent, failing miserably, saying you all, while addressing one other person.

Southerners rarely use "you all" in any situation but they never, never, ever, ever, use it when addressing just one person.

If you were in my home and I offered you a cup of coffee I would say, "Would you like a cup of coffee?"

If you and your brother-in-law and your cousin were in my home, then I'd say, "Would y'all like a cup of coffee?"

Y'all is, of course, a contraction of you all, and most Southerners use it in all verbal situations involving more than one other person.

And another thing: Northerners also tend to think Southerners say the following when bidding a farewell to a visitor:

"You all come back now, you heah?"

Maybe the Clampetts said that, but very few real Southerners do.

We might say, "Y'all come back to see us when you can," or, "If y'all can't come, call."

But this "you heah," business is the concoction of some Yankee scriptwriter trying to be cute.

I rarely get into a punching mode, but I was in New York doing a tape version of a book I had written and the producer had hired an actor to speak some of the lines.

"Can you do a Southern accent?" I asked the actor.

"Would you all like to hear me?" he answered.

"I've already heard enough," I said. Then, I turned to the producer and said, "This man isn't going to be on my book tape because I will not have the Yankee version of Southern accent in or on anything that bears my name."

The actor became enraged and said he could, too, do a Southern accent, and I replied, "If you can do a Southern accent, pigs can fly."

We got into each other's face, but before we came to blows, the producer fired the man and ordered him out of the studio and the script was altered so I would be the only one speaking on the tape.

I take the Southern accent and the preservation of its purity quite seriously.

And if any of y'all are going to the inauguration, have a good time. I'd go myself, but I don't want to.