Born and raised in the South, growing up it’s always been spelled y’all. Recently, I’ve been seeing more people spell it as ya’ll. Which I am struggling to understand because “ya’ll” doesn’t even make sense grammatically? The apostrophe should be immediately placed after the Y to signify that -ou has been dropped from the phrase “you all”. Placing the apostrophe after the a seems redundant because it’s splitting the word all instead of signifying that the -ou was dropped from you

I spent most of my life living in Texas and, as such, "y'all" is my preferred second person plural pronoun. However, I rarely actually see it spelled with the apostrophe in the "correct" position between "y" and "all." Rather, it seems more often to be spelled "ya'll." I'm curious to know what accounts for this widespread, perhaps nearly ubiquitous, "misspelling."

Non American here so I'm kinda curious. How are they used differently in a sentence?

You all will.

Help, please.

As an Englishman “y’all” isn’t something that is said in British English. Seeing someone write “y’all” immediately identifies the user as an American.

I remember the last time I travelled in the US around 10 years ago, I only heard “y’all” said in the southern states simply as a contraction of “you all”. However, I see the word being used everywhere and replacing other words as well. I’m seeing people using “y’all” instead of ‘all’, ‘you’, ‘ your’, ‘you’re’, ‘everyone’, ‘everybody’… for example I recently saw the sentence “who is y’all favourite YouTuber?”.

It’s not a contraction of ya all, it’s a contraction of you all. The apostrophe replaces the ou, making it “y’all.” A small part of me dies every time someone types it like “ya’ll,” which means that tragically I have already lost years of my life and also an arm due to this. Like how did this even start, did someone pronounce it as “yuh all” instead of “yoll?” :P

Now, I have heard that there is an increasing trend in non-southern US to use "y'all" (to the extent of which, I'm not sure), because of efforts to seem more "gender-neutral", but I very much doubt that explanation when it comes to where I live, in Singapore.

Based on my personal experience in daily life here, the usage of "y'all" is not limited to text messages, but also permeates through speech in all casual settings (yes, in Singlish as well). Using it does not make your speech seem strange or forced to locals at all, and it doesn't carry any extra connotations (except for its casualness). It is exchangeable with "you guys" in speech, but I'd say that "you guys" actually seems more stilted than "y'all" to a certain extent.

Would there be any explanation as to how "y'all" assimilated into common Singaporean vocabulary, as it is found in neither British nor Australian English (with British English commonly regarded as the pillar of standard Singaporean English), and isn't even found in standard North American English?

My theory would that it came through AAVE (the source of a lot of modern trendy vocabulary), but stubbornly persisted because of its monosyllabic nature, which gives it a pseudo-Chinese and thus pseudo-Singlish/Singaporean characteristic (which explains the preference of "y'all" over "you guys").

Is "y'all" becoming more common in your community, or is it just a Singaporean thing?

I know everyone knows it means “you all” but put the darn apostrophe in the right place.

I’m from Central Illinois, now living in Chicago. 90% of the people I know are from north of Springfield. When I hear one of them say y’all, I always think, “They’re from Naperville (or wherever). Why are they saying y’all?” I never say anything about it since people can talk however they want and language is always evolving, but it always amuses me to hear. It just sounds so out of place to me without a southern accent. What do you all think? Do you have an irrational hatred of “y’all” too?

Hey y'all! I'm a native speaker but I thought this would be useful for people learning. Where I'm from (Texas, United States), people generally assume that "you" is singular (at least, the people I know who are from here.) You never refer to a group--especially a big crowd--as "you." Normally, it's "y'all" (contraction of "you all").

For example, if someone walked up to me and a group of friends and asked "what are you doing?" I'd ask, "which one of us are you talking to?" But if they had asked, "What are y'all doing?" I'd say, "We're doing homework."

Sometimes people say "you guys," but I personally only use it to get people's attention ("You guys! Pay attention!") but even then, I use "y'all" for that purpose as well ("Y'all! Pay attention!")

So, anyway, I'm curious how y'all use the singular and plural, if you have one, second-person pronoun, or how do you refer to multiple people if not with a pronoun? Thanks!!

EDIT: typos

Y'ALL.

YOU ALL.

Thank you for coming to my ted talk.

I'm having the best time here. I absolutely love a serious discussion on sticky grammar issues, especially the ones that make grammarians grimace.

So, given this, I'd love to know your opinions on the maligned (unaccepted?) second person plural pronoun, y'all, and it's possessive form, y'all's.

I can't help it, I just adore these words. And, I can't believe we don't have an acceptable word in English for this commonly needed pronoun.

What are your thoughts?

Edit: Sorry, I dropped the "s" on "thous", was pointed out in replies. Thank you, Rocketman0739.

Edit 2: For clarity, I'm not just considering the possessive form of the second person plural pronoun in modern English. That makes so little sense it shrieks of pedantry. Why would anyone want to have "y'alls" become part of proper English without also including "y'all"? For those who have made it clear that my example didn't deal with the possessive second person plural pronoun issue, please reread my post. It includes y'all.