I've just come to realize how pervasive this phenomenon is. Take any two kids, each with their own particular bad habits. Mix them together then separate after 1 hour. Each will walk away with a complete set of their combined bad habits, give or take a couple lesser ones. Take this real life example of my own Bear and his close friend (who we'll call "Bear's Friend") as recorded on our Nanny-Cam:

The Scene: Bear and Bear's Friend are sitting and playing relatively peacefully with Bear's new Ultra Incredibly Cool Nintendo Brand Game Cube while Lovely Wife folds laundry. Lovely Wife gathers the folded laundry and walks off camera (stage left).

Bear's Friend: (looks around the room) She gone?

Bear: (also looks around the room) Yeah.

BF: Cool! What new ones do you got?

B: I was over with Bear's Other Friend yesterday and I got BREAKING EXPENSIVE STUFF. I only had to give him SNEEZING ON DADDY'S PLATE. You got anything that good?

BF: Almost. Last week Bear's Friend's Sister was playing on the floor and then just SPEWED WITH NO WARNING AT ALL. It was awesome. She traded me for TAKING OFF PULLUPS AND PEEING IN THE BED.

B: Hmmm. That's good but you need to do a bit better. Tell you what. You throw in SPEWING WITH NO WARNING AT ALL and that INCESSANT RATTING ON SIBLING that you got last week and I'll trade you the BREAKING EXPENSIVE STUFF.

BF: Deal

B: Cool

(Bear and Bear's Friend shake hands. Bear's Friend picks up the controller for the Ultra Incredibly Cool Nintendo Brand Game Cube and smashes in the top of the Ultra Incredibly Cool Nintendo Brand Game Cube. Lovely Wife rushes into the room (from stage left) to see what the noise was. Bear's Friend looks up at Lovely Wife with a face of cherubic peace. Lovely Wife's face splits down the middle in the first physical manifestation of a conniption.)

Lovely Wife: (furious, loud voice) What in the world are you doing?

BF: (confused, sotto voice) Sorry.

LW: Gaaaaaah!

B: Blaughlupslup

(Bear throws up on the No Longer Quite So Ultra Incredibly Cool Nintendo Brand Game Cube.)

LW: Gaaaaaaah!

The tape cut off here as a random laser beam from Lovely Wife's eyes aparently impacted the video camera.

In any case, although this is anecdotal evidence, it certainly points to a much greater pattern of behavior and perhaps even a juvenile conspiracy. Parents beware.

Posted by: Jim at 12:40 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 423 words, total size 3 kb.

Welcome to Modern Speach 101. Our lesson today is the word y'all and its derivatives.

Let us begin with the boring stuff, just as Mrs. Klutch always did back in high school. Y'all is a variant of You-all that has generally suplanted that longer form as it is more comfortable on the tongue and its use shows that the speaker does not hail from West Virginia. Y'all is singular, All Y'all is plural, Y'all's and All Y'all's are single and plural possessive, respectively.

Phew, glad that's over. Now let's move onto the fun stuff. Why do we need Y'all in all its forms and glory? Because the English language has hamstrung itself with the loss of the plural possesive pronoun. Once upon a time we had Ye and life was good. "Hear ye, hear ye", etceteras. Some time in the early 1800's the use of ye was lost in favor of the generic you. This sucked. I mean really, can you picture the town crier yelling out "Hear you, hear you"? This loss was quickly corrected with regional abberations of you-all. In the northeast we have youse as in "Hey! Youse guys better pay up your vig or Vinnie Two Thumbs is gonna break your kneecaps". In the middle Atlantic states you-all was preserved in its pure form giving us usage such as "You-all should stop going to family reunions looking to pick up chicks". In the south sometime around 1834 the use of y'all gained wide acceptance allowing concise statements such as "Y'all come check this out before I flush it".

Actually, that last example is substandard. The correct sentence would be "Y'all come check this out afore I flush it".

Great care must be made regarding which form of y'all to use. Use these examples of proper usage as a guide:

Addressing a single person or small group representing a larger group:
1) Y'all gonna finish that?
2) Y'all just opened up a fresh can of whoop-ass.

Addressing a group, especially when the group is racially, geographically or religiously distinct:
1) I'd be off the welfare if it weren't for all y'all carpet baggers taking the good jobs.
2) All y'all are just lucky my woman ain't cleaned my white sheet yet from the last lynchin.

Possessive address regarding something belonging to a single person or representative group:
1) Those wheels still on y'all's trailer?
2) Y'all's kids outta third grade yet?

Possessive address regarding something belonging to a group:
1) Dale's car woulda put all y'all's to shame. Earnhardt! Wooo! Never forget!
2) Got me some shine better than all y'all's.

As intimated above, y'all and y'all's can be used in a limited plural form. For beginners it is sometimes advisable to stick to just those two. Incorrect usage of all y'all and all y'all's can identify you as either a Yankee or a Floridian, both with disastrous results.

Posted by: Jim at 10:59 AM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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