This is an I-Heart podcast.

Welcome to Brain Stuff, a production of IHeart Radio.

Hey, Brain Stuff, Lauren Volgabaum here.

The term y'all is as ubiquitous in the American South as boiled peanuts,

college football, and kudzu climbing the trees.

If it were possible to hold a giant microphone over the entire region right this minute, y'all would

probably be drowning out all the other words. It's as southern as grits and as smooth and sweet as

soft butter on a warm biscuit. And it's inclusive.

Y'all means you all, and thus doesn't exclude anyone based on their gender or class.

Could this humble contraction turn out to be the efficient second-person plural pronoun the

English lexicon has long been waiting for?

Of course, English has a second-person singular pronoun, you.

Useful for addressing a solitary person.

But unlike other languages, modern English doesn't have a word you can use to address a group of people.

Back in the day, yee was used, as in hear ye, hear ye, meaning listen up y'all.

Or come all ye faithful. But it doesn't exactly roll off the tongue in these are modern times.

Hey, ye, who has the Wi-Fi password? Sounds stilted.

English speakers can colloquially bend the singular you to apply to groups. Let's say you're

getting ready to leave a restaurant with your family or a few friends. You could say,

you ready to go, to the table at large, and it would be understood that you

are addressing them collectively.

But that's not super precise, so a lot of speakers have adopted phrases or contractions to

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