Answer: How is "y'all" spelled and why?

[mendax.livejournal.com]

rykaine asks, "How is 'y’all' spelled and why?"
With examples from Firefly.




rykaine has the correct answer right there in her question: “Y’all” is spelled “y’all,” not—and I’m going to repeat that for emphasis—not “ya’ll.”

I do understand where the confusion comes from. After all, we have "you’ll," "she’ll," "we’ll," "they’ll," and so on, so why not "ya’ll"?

Well, because that’s not how contractions work. A contraction takes a word phrase, removes the separation between the words, yanks out a syllable, and puts an apostrophe there instead. Note, the apostrophe always goes where the removed letter or letters were.

So we have “you” and we have “all.” Smoosh (highly technical grammar term there) them together, take out the unspoken “ou” and indicate that you did so with an apostrophe, and voila! Y’all. It doesn’t match all of those other “ll” endings because those are contractions of the verb “will” with the unspoken “wi” taken out. It’s like this:

You’ll = you + will
-Smoosh them together: youwill
-Take out the syllable nobody says: youll
-Use an apostrophe to indicate the missing letters: you’ll

Mal: You don't know me, son. So let me explain this to you once: If I ever kill you, you'll be awake, you'll be facing me, and you'll be armed.

Simon: Are you always this sentimental?
(“Serenity”)

Y’all = you + all
-Smoosh them together: youall
-Take out the syllable nobody says: yall
-Use an apostrophe to indicate the missing letters: y’all

Mal: Y'all are making a big deal and I would appreciate it if one person on this boat did not assume I was an evil, lecherous hump.
(“Our Mrs. Reynolds”)

This dialectal contraction is most frequently heard in the southern United States. Its use has spread (these days I hear it not infrequently where I live, which is about as far from south as it’s possible to get in the contiguous U.S.), but you’re still probably best off using it within that dialect.

Bonus lecture: Contrary to popular belief, “all y’all” is not the plural of “y’all.” "Y’all" is plural all on its own, a construction designed to distinguish between the singular and plural “you.” Rather, “all y’all” is used the same way as “all of you,” to specify every member of a group, not just some.

Comments

[campylobacter.livejournal.com]

Amen to that!