"Y'all is plural. Always. It can be used when addressing a single individual but only when that person is being addressed as a representative of a group."
Now, that's not true in my experience, granted I only lived in the South for seven years (the Carolinas), but still, I heard y'all used to refer to specific individuals lots of times, even though technically, yes, it is plural. That's mostly why I noticed it so much, always one to pick out the cognitive dissonances, me. ;-) The Northern equivalent (well, Pennsylvanian, really) would be "yinz", contraction of "you uns", and I think (could be wrong) is truly only used for multiple people. ;-) As in, "Would yinz like some breakfasts?" They also insert the extra Rs, which annoys the hell out of me, and a "low hollow nasal" sort of tone as opposed to the higher nasal tone that I associate with the Southern dialects. I tend to associate that extra hard R with a "hillbilly" sort of lower-class rural accent regardless of actual location, while the soft R seems more of an urbanish middle-to-upper class distinction.
That being said, I agree about the use of phoenetic dialogue. It has to be perfectly done and in the proper context or else it's really jarring. It really bugs me when people write with a Scottish accent and misspell the colloquialisms like "nae" as "nea" -- for fuck's sake.
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Date: 2008-03-15 04:51 pm (UTC)Now, that's not true in my experience, granted I only lived in the South for seven years (the Carolinas), but still, I heard y'all used to refer to specific individuals lots of times, even though technically, yes, it is plural. That's mostly why I noticed it so much, always one to pick out the cognitive dissonances, me. ;-) The Northern equivalent (well, Pennsylvanian, really) would be "yinz", contraction of "you uns", and I think (could be wrong) is truly only used for multiple people. ;-) As in, "Would yinz like some breakfasts?" They also insert the extra Rs, which annoys the hell out of me, and a "low hollow nasal" sort of tone as opposed to the higher nasal tone that I associate with the Southern dialects. I tend to associate that extra hard R with a "hillbilly" sort of lower-class rural accent regardless of actual location, while the soft R seems more of an urbanish middle-to-upper class distinction.
That being said, I agree about the use of phoenetic dialogue. It has to be perfectly done and in the proper context or else it's really jarring. It really bugs me when people write with a Scottish accent and misspell the colloquialisms like "nae" as "nea" -- for fuck's sake.