• mriormro@lemmy.world
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    11 months ago

    It’s a second person plural pronoun. Other languages have them. For instance, Spanish has vosotros/ustedes and German has ihr.

    • OutlierBlue@lemmy.ca
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      11 months ago

      English already has a plural pronoun: “you”. It’s the singular that we’ve lost: “thou”.

      • mriormro@lemmy.world
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        11 months ago

        The nice thing about languages is that they evolve, change, reconfigure, and adapt. They are not sacred things, but tools we use and manipulate. While we may have something similar, the utility needs of our words change over time and over regions. In certain parts of the United States and elsewhere ‘y’all’ has filed in the linguistic gap.

    • Jumuta@sh.itjust.works
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      11 months ago

      yeah, I know the utility of the word but it just doesn’t sound nice, I try to restructure my sentences to avoid it whenever possible. just the tone of “yall” has the “trying to seem cool” vibe and it feels like an overfriendly word to use in most scenarios.

      • Carlo@lemmy.ca
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        11 months ago

        It doesn’t have the same connotation for everybody, obviously. As a resident of the southern US, it’s just an everyday phrase, and doesn’t carry any “trying to seem cool” baggage.