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user-inactivated · 3297 days ago · link · · parent · post: Ask Hubski - What's the Saddest Word? (and also a new song for the music club)
Y'all. It fills a very useful and otherwise unfilled grammatical role. It allows you to unambiguously address a representative of a group as a representative of that group rather than as an individual. "You keep fucking up" is a personal accusation, "y'all keep fucking up" is not. Y'all is a friend of all who have to deal with dysfunctional organizations. Many conflicts can be avoided by making clear that it is not the person you are talking to, necessarily, you are calling a fuckup. It is rarely allowed to do its thing, though, because you can't say "y'all" without sounding like an uneducated hick. Proper grammar demands making is personal or adding lengthy qualifications to every other sentence. Poor y'all, it only wants to help.