Listen, Y’ALL: The Plural ‘You’ Is Biblical

Eastern Kentucky

If you want to know where in the United States people call home, just wait long enough to hear them speak informally to a group of people. If you hear “y’all,” they may hail from the Deep South, like me. If you hear “yous guys,” New Jersey would be a smarter guess. In some parts of Appalachia, or Pittsburgh, you might even hear “you’uns.”

These regional differences—as Josh Katz explains in Speaking American: How Y’all, Youse, and You Guys Talk: A Visual Guide—aren’t just fascinating. They’re real-life solutions to a particular ambiguity in the English language, an ambiguity that can hinder our reading of Scripture in English.

The English pronoun “you” functions as both the second-person singular and plural. A husband says “I love you” to his wife, and a rock star shouts “Are you ready?” to a stadium full of fans. We used to have the exclusively singular “thou,” but in modern English, “you” does everything. Read More