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Originally Posted by vsvo
Regarding Texas, we lived in Houston for a year when I was in the fourth grade, before moving back to the northeast. I remember the first day in school after moving back, the kids asked me about my "southern" accent, when I didn't even realize I had acquired an accent (so now maybe I shouldn't be so hard on Madonna). To this day, "y'all" sounds more natural to me than "you all," which sounds awkward.
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Harvard did a big study of American dialects a few years ago. Question 50 was "What word(s) do you use to address a group of two or more people?". 10,764 people responded:
- you guys (42.53%)
- you (24.82%)
- y'all (13.99%)
- you all (12.63%)
- yous, youse (0.67%)
- yins (0.37%)
- you 'uns (0.20%)
- you lot (0.18%)
- other (4.62%)
"you guys" was big in the Northeast, upper midwest and Pacific coast. Map
here.
"you" had almost the same distribution. Map
here.
"you all" was slightly less concentrated, but mainly in the same areas. Map
here.
"y'all" was a Southern thing, but there are a lot of Northeasterners using it. Map
here.
"youse" and "yous" was almost entirely New York/New Jersey area. Map
here.
"yins" and "you 'uns" seem to be Pittsburgh dialects: "Yins"
here and "you 'uns"
here.
"you lot" was scattered and too tiny a sample. Map
here.
New Yorkers mainly use "you guys" (48.04%) and "you" (33.21%). "You all" was 9.10% and "y'all" was 5.24%.
Texans mainly use "y'all" (73.09%). "You guys" was a distant second at 11.40% and "you all" a distant third (8.78%). "You" was 5.17%.