Date: Sun, 22 Jan 1995 09:11:00 EST

From: "Dennis.Preston" 22709MGR[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MSU.EDU

Subject: 2 pl, "Yankee"



You guys meaning something like the organization you represent is common here

in Michigan. Do you guys have long underwear? (a sentence a CRAN [Curiously

Removed Apppalachian in the North] like me is apt to ask these days).

You-all versus yall was socially marked in Louisville in the 50s. The first

was perceived by middle class (especially lower middle class) speakers to be

OK; they avoided the second and associated it with hick and/or working class

speech. The truth was (so far as I can reconstruct it) that upper middle (and

probably upper) class speakers and working class speakers both used it. The

you-all speakers were, therefore, the more classically linguistically

insecure, although the various regional inputs into the Louisville might also

have been partly responsible.

I cannot reconstruct (and probably should not try) any subtle pragmatic or

semantic differences between the two, but I am intrigued by the possibility.

Dennis Preston

22709mgr[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]msu.edu