this post was submitted on 31 Aug 2023
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Showerthoughts

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[–] nednobbins@lemm.ee 38 points 1 year ago (4 children)

“You” is also ungendered. There seems to be a common idea that English is missing a second person plural. We have one, it’s “you”. We just stopped using the second person singular. That’s what all those variations of “thee, thou, thy” etc were.

“Y’all” would be a superpluralization. If that’s still not enough we also have the ultraplural form of, “all y’all”

[–] pythonoob@programming.dev 10 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Y'all is exclusive. All y'all is inclusive.

If I walk into a party in a house and a group of my friends are there and I say 'what are y'all doing here?', I'm only talking to my friends.

If I walk into my own house and there's a party there and I say 'what are all y'all doing here?' I'm addressing everyone of the hoodlums in my house.

[–] Art3sian@lemmy.world 10 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

We’re very inclusive in Australia also.

‘G’day you bunch of cunts’ means hello to everyone male, female, known and unknown.

We’re very polite over here.

[–] pythonoob@programming.dev 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

How very nice of all you cunts over there

[–] hglman@lemmy.ml 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

All Y'all cunts, we just talked about this.

[–] pythonoob@programming.dev 3 points 1 year ago

Whoops. Thanks y'all

[–] gmtom@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Getting pressed enough about a single downvote to make an edit is cringe.

[–] pythonoob@programming.dev 2 points 1 year ago

Saying that things other people do are cringe is cringe.

[–] nednobbins@lemm.ee 1 points 1 year ago

Yeah. We mostly think of grammatical number as a simple choice of singular vs plural but that's not what we do in real life.

We generally have multiple labels that describe the concept of progressively expanding circles of what's included when we think of ourselves.

There's the very narrow sense of I/me/myself. We have various expansions around us/all'y'all. Jamaicans have the phrase "I and I" which focuses on the individual but explicitly calls out the connection with others.

[–] I_Fart_Glitter@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

So then "All y'alls" (not all y'all's) would be ultrasuperpluralization?

[–] nednobbins@lemm.ee 2 points 1 year ago

Sounds right.
Presumably "y'all's" would be the second person superplural possessive.

[–] _g_be@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

All y'all's "all y'all" for all and for y'all

[–] jasondj@ttrpg.network 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

In New England (the best England), we have “youse”.

[–] nednobbins@lemm.ee 1 points 1 year ago

We also have "Ya'" where we elide the entire ending and you need to determine plural vs singular from context. For example, "Ya' can't get thea, les' ya been there befoa."