James Finn
1 min readApr 28, 2021

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We’re faced with a bit of linguistics problem here. English lacks a distinguishably plural you, which lack linguists say is something languages tend to resist.

(of course you used to be plural and thou used to be singular but we’ve lost that.)

In places like the American South y’all took over in the vernacular for the plural you. And when y’all began to also take on a singular meaning, all y’all began to be seen.

In places like New York and Boston, youse sometimes acts as the plural, though it carries some low-prestige baggage, and is not considered respectable vernacular.

In the Midwest, you guys started to become very popular in the mid 20th century, not as a planned vernacular plural, but as an example of the same linguistics phenomenon that formed y’all and youse.

So all that just to say that as we acknowledge that you guys does not properly include women, we still face a strong linguistics force demanding to fill the gap of a second-person plural.

Given how strong you guys is in the Midwest in idiomatic speech, eliminating it will probably not work unless we consciously replace it with something useful to fill its linguistic function.

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James Finn
James Finn

Written by James Finn

James Finn is an LGBTQ columnist, a former Air Force intelligence analyst, an alumnus of Act Up NY, and an agented but unpublished novelist.

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