the term yous

[mrsbucketxx]

is just wrong.

i know this belongs in pedants but its just making me mad. I have noticed more and more on the programs i watch, such as Marv on the voice, Towie, and other southern based programs that when the person is talking to others that they say

yous instead of you, such as what do yous think. not what do you think.

its making me more than a little crazy aibu?

[squoosh]

YABU

I sometimes say 'yous' and 'ye' and don't care that it isn't 'correct', it's pretty common in Ireland. If you think about it English is quite unusual in not having a collective 'you'. Hiberno English is littered with things that you don't hear said in the UK.

[Birdsgottafly]

So it should be, "what do all of you think", rather than "what do yous think"?

It's merely a form of shortened dialect.

[squoosh]

I say 'amn't' too Helen, had no idea till I moved to the UK that it wasn't standard English. It gets some funny looks!

[mrsbucketxx]

I am a snob hence my username.

nowt wrong with wanting to better yourself??? lotta

[mrsbucketxx]

it has no place on tv though imo

[squoosh]

Helen tell your grammar obsessed husband that 'amn't' isn't gramatically incorrect. It just isn't widely used.

[mrsjay]

you are watching TOWIE fgs hardly high brow telly is it

[mrsbucketxx]

i watch a lot of bbc 4 too so it balances it out. its my guilty pleasure.

[MintChocAddict]

It might sound OK in an Irish accent but it really doesn't when said by a Glaswegian. And I say that a proud born and bred Glaswegian.

Runs away and hides>>

[tabulahrasa]

Hmm, see I'd argue that having a plural for you is actually correct grammar...it was there before people got lazy and used you for both singular and plural.

[squoosh]

1. glass houses 2) stones
   
   That's all.

[MoominMammasHandbag]

I quite like it actually, it's a useful word.

How boring would it be if everyone used standard English and language never evolved?

[Lottapianos]

Better yourself??? Oh dear. Speaking Standard English does not make you better than someone who doesn't. And using words like 'common' just makes you sound like Hyacinth Bucket

[BeverleyMoss]

kinda ironic, no?

[LRDtheFeministDragon]

'There is no you plural in modern English because it used to be thou singular and ye plural and it changed into you for both.'

And before that (and, actually, in non-standard dialects alongside that) it was all sorts of other things too. 'Thee' is plural but so is 'thow' and '3iow' and 'youe'. And 'thou' is singular but so is 'tu' and 'thu'.

Which is why we have loads of dialectally different words for 'you' in the plural'.

FWIW, 'yousen' (like 'housen' for 'houses') is an even older root for plurals.

[scarletforya]

Youze are all mad.

[mrsbucketxx]

Where did I say common?

Err I didn't.

[MintChocAddict]

runs back in >>
I'm don't care whether it's grammatically correct or not. It would still make me squirm when I hear it.
So there.

[Lottapianos]

You didn't, someone else did up thread

[LRDtheFeministDragon]

Goodness, who cares if it's 'common'? Isn't the world coming to utter absurdity if we have to debate whether a familiar form is 'common' or not? That's what it's there for!

[tabulahrasa]

"And before that (and, actually, in non-standard dialects alongside that) it was all sorts of other things too. 'Thee' is plural but so is 'thow' and '3iow' and 'youe'. And 'thou' is singular but so is 'tu' and 'thu'.

Which is why we have loads of dialectally different words for 'you' in the plural'."

I only remember the bits that made me realize that all those 'slang' Scottish words aren't actually slang at all, but hark back to older words (like yous) or just have a different root word (bairn and child) - selective memory in linguistics, lol.

[LRDtheFeministDragon]

You know, despite knowing 'bairn' as a word I had never stopped to think about that!

[mrsjay]

yeah we used to get told to speak english in school i use a lot of scottish and english words its like I am billingual

[LRDtheFeministDragon]

Bidialectal? Is that a word?