Southern education
Stolen from a friend:
YOU-ALL
Come all of you from other parts,
Both city folks and rural,
And listen while I tell you this:
The word “you-all” is PLURAL.
If I should say to Hiram Jones,
For instance, “You-all’s lazy.”
Or “Would you-all lend me your knife?”
He’d think that I was crazy.
And when we say, “Now you-all come
Or we shall all be lonely,”
We mean a dozen folks perhaps,
And not one person only.
So if you’d be more sociable
And with us freely mingle,
You’d find that on the native tongue
“You-all” is never single.
Don’t think I mean to criticize
Or act as if I knew all,
But when we speak of only one,
We just say “You” like you-all.
Posted by Margaret Maron at 12:54 PM
YOU-ALL
Come all of you from other parts,
Both city folks and rural,
And listen while I tell you this:
The word “you-all” is PLURAL.
If I should say to Hiram Jones,
For instance, “You-all’s lazy.”
Or “Would you-all lend me your knife?”
He’d think that I was crazy.
And when we say, “Now you-all come
Or we shall all be lonely,”
We mean a dozen folks perhaps,
And not one person only.
So if you’d be more sociable
And with us freely mingle,
You’d find that on the native tongue
“You-all” is never single.
Don’t think I mean to criticize
Or act as if I knew all,
But when we speak of only one,
We just say “You” like you-all.
Posted by Margaret Maron at 12:54 PM