Friday - A Word For All Occasions

Today on my drive into work, I was thinking about the word y'all. I'm fond of it and use it un-apologetically. I'm a Texas girl and the word is my birthright. For the record, it is a contraction of the word you and the word all, and therefore the apostrophe goes after the y, not the a. It drives me crazy to see it misspelled.

People in the Southeastern United States in general, and Texas in particular, are simply not comfortable with the plural you. While it is grammatically correct, it is also confusing. If someone says, "You, please come here," and I am standing with another person, I have to discern if you mean me, the other person or both of us. On the other hand, if you say, "Hey, y'all come over here and look at this," my companion and I know that you want both of us to come over.

( I'm fixing to explain this, y'all, so listen up. )