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Last poll I promise, it's just been bugging me. Is it Y'all or Ya'll? I've seen it written both ways. Just wondering which is right and why.

It's a contraction of you all, the apostrophe takes the place of ou, because we don't like ou here in Texas.

Fangs wrote:Last poll I promise, it's just been bugging me. Is it Y'all or Ya'll? I've seen it written both ways. Just wondering which is right and why.

Where y'all from that you don't know this? Are you a..er, uh...yankee?

Zoomie wrote:It's a contraction of you all, the apostrophe takes the place of ou, because we don't like ou here in Texas.

Congrats, that is a good one!

I'm from South Africa. I've seen it written both ways not just on forums and stuff, but also on buildings, water towers, camping sites, etc. I've always thought it's "y'all" but someone recently told me it should be "ya'll" because it's a contraction of "ya all".

So I've had to resort to "you guys" until I figured out which one was going to make me look stupid for using it.

Y'all. Isn't y'all singular and all y'all plural?

An apostrophe takes the place of omitted letters, so it is y'all. Just like "can not" is "can't" because you omit the extra "no" part, "you all" is "y'all" because you omit the "ou" part. In any case, you can just pretend you were typing quickly and accidentally put it in the wrong place!

For your comedy fix, google "Mitch in the S'th" and click the play button on the resulting search page.
That joke was funny but it seemed lost on the audience. I know you guys would laugh. :)

Zoomie wrote:It's a contraction of you all, the apostrophe takes the place of ou, because we don't like ou here in Texas.

Actually I think the correct spelling is yawl. (being funny)

seniorshooteress wrote:Actually I think the correct spelling is yawl. (being funny)

Wrong. A Yawl is a sailing vessel.

Fangs wrote:Last poll I promise

I like Polls
You should do a Poll about Polls to see how many people like them too.

What do you all think?

USA1 wrote:What do you all think?

If you're avoiding contractions, shouldn't that be, "What do all you all think?"

Y'all is second person, plural.

It is as grammatically correct, when speaking to a all members of a group, as any contraction.

And, yep, it is misused quite often.

SQLGeek wrote:Y'all. Isn't y'all singular and all y'all plural?

"Y'all" is the singular. "All y'all" is the plural.

Being born and raised in the land of Shakespeare I can put this to rest with a quote from one of the Bard's works:

Hamlet, Act 1 Scene 5: "Alas poor Yorick I knew him well, at least better than y'all anyways".