you-all
/yoo͞′ôl′/
pronoun
- You. Used in addressing two or more people or referring to two or more people, one of whom is addressed.
“You-all”—also occurring as “y’all”—is a second-person plural pronoun that occurs in some regional versions of US English. It is used by some speakers to eliminate the ambiguity caused by the Standard English “you”, since “you” does not differentiate between singular and plural.
“All of you” is a noun-phrase that may be used in Standard English when the ambiguity of “you” by itself would be confusing or misleading.
In most contexts “all of you” would be considered the correct phrasing. Some listeners or readers perceive “you-all” to be incorrect.
Answer from Jeffrey L Whitledge on Stack ExchangeWhat does all y’all mean?
How do you spell y’all?
Is it yall or y’all?
Videos
“You-all”—also occurring as “y’all”—is a second-person plural pronoun that occurs in some regional versions of US English. It is used by some speakers to eliminate the ambiguity caused by the Standard English “you”, since “you” does not differentiate between singular and plural.
“All of you” is a noun-phrase that may be used in Standard English when the ambiguity of “you” by itself would be confusing or misleading.
In most contexts “all of you” would be considered the correct phrasing. Some listeners or readers perceive “you-all” to be incorrect.
Both are technically correct, but the second ("you all") is less preferable because of the ambiguity of whether you mean y'all * or simply you all. Of course, if you're writing in a context where "y'all" is acceptable, then this isn't a problem.
You can slightly rephrase #2 to avoid the ambiguity, but keep more-or-less the same meaning:
You are all sitting here with me in my den.
Note that the "you all are"/"you are all" constructions mean something slightly different than the "all of you are" construction. The latter places emphasis on the fact that all of you are sitting here, as opposed to just some of you. The former put a very slight emphasis on sitting instead.
* As in, the slightly-redundant informal version of the 2nd person plural pronoun.
I have heard that "You guys" is more common in the northern part of the U.S., and "Y'all" is more common in the southern part of the U.S. However, I have seen New Yorkers say "Y'all" as well.
So here are my questions:
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which is better, "You guys" or "Y'all"? What is your opinion?
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what words do you use to refer to more than one person in the UK?
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is "You guys" an expression that can be used even if the group includes women?
thx!
Non American here so I'm kinda curious. How are they used differently in a sentence?