In a recent conversation with a German friend, she set me thinking when she asked: ‘And what are yous doing for Christmas?’.
Of course! What initially sounded like a grammatical slur ended up being an excellent illustration of why English may not be the perfect language.
When a Dutch person wants to address a group of people, they’ll say jullie; the French vous; Germans ihr. But what option did my friend have other than to add an s to you to convey her meaning?
Verbal shortcuts
People love making things as easy and fast for themselves as possible. We like to know the fastest way to walk to work. We buy ready-made sushi rather than spend the time making it ourselves. In terms of our thought processes, we often use mental shortcuts to ease the burden of decision-making.
It appears we’re no different when it comes to speaking. So for that dastardly old plural of you, many of us do whatever we can to avoid having to add on an all to make ourselves understood.
Savvy solutions
Once my friend had inadvertently helped me recognise this ‘problem’, I realised I’d long been witnessing people’s makeshift solutions to it. So we’ve already identified yous, but I’ve also often heard people borrow the American ya’ll. And you guys or even yous guys pops up every now and then too. And then there’s my Dad’s old favourite: yous ones.
Some of these solutions are not even shorter than you all, and they’re often spoken in jest. But I think its just fine to poke fun at the idiosyncrasies of the English language.
Visit this site to see a few solutions that the Americans have come up with: http://mentalfloss.com/article/12916/yall-youse-8-english-ways-make-you-plural
melissamebus 