Syntax as a tool of The Man • 11 February 2008 • The SnowBlog

Syntax as a tool of The Man

          


For no particular reason, I've written the colonial pronoun you'all a couple of times lately. It's often written y'all, but all the Midwesterners I know who use it, say it you'all. Just in case you don't know about this, I thought I'd tell you why it's a handy pronoun and how it relates to non-standard English-speakers who say you was rather than you were (shortly before they get a clip round the ear for same, if they're young enough). You know, just in case you care about such things.
 
We used to use you the same way some 'merkans use you'all. It was a plural pronoun which took over from thee*. The singular was thou.
Look at how nice and neat that makes the use of auxiliaries:

I was
Thou was
He/She was
We were
You were
They were

But then posh folk stopped saying thou and made you do double duty. They still said you were, but they said it when they were talking about something singular. This seemed illogical to everyone who wasn't posh. But posh people get to say what's standard and what's not**. So these days we have what looks very much like the plural form of the auxiliary, were, used with the singular as well as the plural pronoun:

I was
You were
He/She was
We were
You were
They were

I'm sure many of you know this stuff, but still, whenever I hear people being told off for not talking 'properly', when all they're doing is maintaining the logical and historically well-established forms of their dialect it does make me think there's a bit of elitism going on.


*I haven't seen this written anywhere, but I've just assumed this change was lead by those bilingual in French, and that you is an anglicised vous (and later tu). Anyone want to tell me I'm wrong?
**Again I'm guessing, but I wonder if using were for a singular was easier for the sorts of folks who like to drink claret and talk in the subjunctive, where, as you know, we say things like If I were to... - those of us who don't feel silly and say If I was to... instead. You may recall my flippant thoughts on that subject from here.
 
Rob