no bananaAll y'all be like
netburnrAll you all?
sathingtonI’m southern, let me help. “Y’all” refers to a group of people. It usually means the group of people that the speaker is speaking to, but you can also define the group, like “y’all in the other room” or “y’all Canadians”.
“All y’all” refers to the entirety of that group, as opposed to a subset of a group, which would be “summa y’all”, or none of a group, which would be “nunna y’all”.
I think people would’ve felt it more natural if I wrote “all of y’all” instead, but I thought the “of” was unnecessary.
But you wrote the slang correctly! Unfamiliarity with the slang is an opportunity to educate about our language.
(Source; we been sayin' all y'all since before y'all non-Southerners were even sayin' y'all.)
I know, but as someone who has English as a second language I am also aware of the fact that “all y’all” won’t necessarily make sense to people lol
If you're practicing a localized dialect, and you are, there will be slang that doesn't make sense to some. All of y'all would sound extremely weird to many people from the American south.
Oh totally. My explanation was more for the benefit of those like me but who aren’t familiar with the expression.