When you're a non-American on this site...

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Yous as in 'yous lot' gets used here too. Ya-ll is not at all (though we are familiar with it from tv)

It would be interesting to have some members from India because they have their own distinct dialect of English

the same way there are diffs between English and American. I find this most notable in the comments section

on youtube vids that are Indian but in English.

I've known a couple of people from Japan here. I believe at least one person I encountered was from Mainland China.

Another "plural you" is "youse" as in "youse guys." In Pittsburgh, people say (or used to say) "yinz."

Could be, but it doesn't really help as long as the actual amount is low, which it is, especially if the users aren't very active.
Oh, and there are around 5,5 million of us. Less than there are people in the home cities of some people here I bet...

New York City has almost 9 million people.....

'Thou' may well have dropped out of use three hundred years ago, but quite a few people from the generation before my parents used the accusative form of the word, 'thee', fairly often. This was probably more common in relatively isolated, non-metropolitan communities, especially in the North of England.

I haven't heard 'yous' for the plural of 'you' very much at all. I suspect it's more common in places like Liverpool.

'Y'all' seems a bit heavy-handed for referring to groups of two or three. I thought I'd heard it used with reference to just one person in the odd American film, but may be mistaken in this.

Yep. "Y'all" is sometimes used in a singular sense.

But it's usually used in a plural sense in the South and some places outside the South of the USA.

Peter Cook, satirizing the Northern use of 'thee' (just before the 2 minute mark) on Michael Parkinson's show, mid-1970s.

Something from the interview which American viewers could potentially find confusing - at around 4:46 Parkinson refers to Cook's 'Public School'.In the UK, this is a term used to describe the elite Independent schools, eg Eton, whereas in the USA it refers to state-funded schools, I believe.

Very funny interview, btw.

Last edited by DeepHour on 14 Jan 2019, 1:43 pm, edited 3 times in total.

I have been known to use "thee" whenever I wanted to sound "literary."

...Yeah, the American schools, boarding ones, that are in the Brit " public school " mode are called " prep schools " - I think short for (college) " perparatory schools ". The kind of model/archetypical examples of those schools tend to be more in the New England and Mid-Atlantic states, at least in the stereotypical/standard fiction sense.
A tually, that open up the whestion of the names/definitions America s give to different parts of the country..." the South " is well-known (even though as America expanded it became " the Southeast ", really), but maybe other ones ...?





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Peter Cook, satirizing the Northern use of 'thee' (just before the 2 minute mark) on Michael Parkinson's show, mid-1970s.

Something from the interview which American viewers could potentially find confusing - at around 4:46 Parkinson refers to Cook's 'Public School'.In the UK, this is a term used to describe the elite Independent schools, eg Eton, whereas in the USA it refers to state-funded schools, I believe.

Very funny interview, btw.[/quote]

...' Youse " tends to be a stock phrase in American fiction/drama representation of a, even, lovable tough guy from the " tough " parts of NYC...Especially Brooklyn, of course !..
Or the likewise " tough " parts of Philly or Boston too, of course...if the producer of the show's feeling adventurous !

If someone in a film is using "y'all" when addressing only one person in the room its probably because that one person is a representative of a group of people different from the speaker.Outsiders or whatever. "We don't appreciate y'all telling us how to do things round here."

That's interesting that in some corners of England they still use "thee" (a form of thou). I don't associate "youse" with any part of the UK, but it wouldn't be surprising if Liverpool folks were to use it because Liverpool, like Boston, and New York, is largely populated by descendants of refugees from the Irish potato famine (folks with surnames like Lennon and McCartney)who may have been used to having a plural you in Irish Gaelic.

Had a boss, of half Irish and half Italian background, from Albany New York tell me and another employee that "I want the two o'youse to go over there, and move that thing, and then do …..". So you do still hear it real life, and even from folks from as far inland as upstate New York.

:l



...That rather runs into the question of, in New York State, of: " Where does ' upstate ' stsrt?...,and how far is " far upstate? " I'm from Westchester County, which I see as part of the suburbs of New York City, the NYC suburbs being one one of the three components of NYS, Long Island making up the other part of the " NYC suburbs " in NYS ,(Leaving out the parts of NJ and CN that are slso part of " NYC Suburbia ")...Upstate and Ol' NYC itself making up the other two parts of the " Axis of ' Excelsior! ' " !
I rather see " Upstate " as starting after
Peekskill or Poughkeepsie, say. Someone from further upstate might vehemently disagree with me!

Come to think of it, a variant of 'thou' did survive in parts of Britain (once again, largely in the North), well into the twentieth century. This was the form 'tha' - you might have heard people say things like 'Tha needs to be more honest with me if tha wants me to believe thee'. I can recall people from an older generation talking like this in the 1960s and 70s on rare occasions.

An Albany native probably wouldn’t speak with a NYC accent. The accent around there is more “General American.”

There is an accent in the Buffalo/Rochester region which is similar to the Great Lakes Northern Cities shift accent. They extend their vowels quite a bit, saying “Chicago” like “Chicawgo.”

The NYC accent is nothing like the Buffalo/Rochester accent.