Yo,
"You-all" or, mobetter, "Yawl" ("Y'all" in pedantic academic ornothography)
for the second person plural makes plus perfect sense, being a
field-modification (military term indicating a pragmatically precipitated and
inspired ad hoc repair to a SNAFUed piece of Goverment Issue equipment forced
into immediate and essential usage under stressful circumstances) to the
language made necessary by the Legendary Flakieness of the original Mother
Spekers, who, apparently, just made the whole
thing up as they went along.
The Ultimate Elegant Solution to this problem is, of course, to be found in
amongst the Aboriginal Peasantry of Southern Indianer, with the lovely
"You'ens"
as in the greeting: "You'ens come on in an set ahspel."
It is certainly significant that the first practicioner of this usage who came
to my ears also turned me on to [the] "light."
As in "window light", the individual pane in a multipained window sash
(or partly glazed door).
As for "you guys", this is, obviously a corrupt misunderstanding of the
morebetter "youzguys," itself a perfectly rational reaction to the same lazy
oversitedness mentioned above.
Onamatapoetically speaking "youzguys" beats the morerarer "yawlguys" all
holler.
Re the Stranger-than-Most, Chubby Elastical Doctor's pressing question "I have
sometimes wondered how Americans understand Ko-Ko's reference in
'The Mikado' to 'The Lady from the promises", or, for the gullible few
who believe gremlins live in machines (duh), "provinces": speaking for myself,
i think i may safely say that, among those Mericaners i come in contact with
during the course of any normal day this question comes up much more rarely
than you might expect.
Lexomographically yawls,
christopher
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