h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

The first time I encountered this eurm... (should I say 'word'?), was in the song 'Sabotage' of the Beastie Boys, and for some weird reason it didn't strike me as strange whatsoever ("listen all of y'all, it's sabotage"). Only they say : "all OF y'all". But yeah, since you pointed out the grammar-issue of Americans, I suppose it must be the same as "all y'all".

Great entry, really instrutive!

Just one more thing about the waffles : I don't know how it is in the South, since I only was in the States once, and that was in Virginia, which is a 'border-case', and over there they tend to call it 'Belgian Waffles', which - I assure you - has NOTHING to do with Belgium at all! Having lived in Belgium all my live, I can tell you it has no comparison with what we call waffles... So apparently there's not only a grammar-issue, but also a WAFFLE-issue!

belgian waffles are a type of waffle... usually they're bigger and have ice cream or fruit topping... we also do have just regular waffles.

The Beastie Boys are from New York, so they don't know the niceties of Southern grammar.

SCANDAL!! new yorkers daring to traverse the territory resserved for the likes of charlie daniels and lynard skynard? shocking!

After hearing Jeff Foxworthy's shtick about "y'all" (singular) versus "all y'all" (plural), I feel a real void as a Yankee with no way of expressing second-person plural clearly in speech. So I have started saying "all y'all" when the situation demands it.

(Actually the northern second-person plural would be "you guys" regardless of gender of the group you were talking to. The group that all y'all guys were talking to?)

Hello,

Yeah, it's "you guys" here (guy is gender neutral). If you're in Pittsburgh, they say "yins guys" and the old-fashioned New York accent would be "youse guys".

Yours,
Jake