In Defense of "Ya'll"

Now if you read here a lot, you'll have picked up that I live in South Carolina. Its ok, I'll forgive you if you haven't. I'm not really a southern pride kind of person. I'm also politically liberal and try to keep my accent clean (apparently I slip into a drawl when I get angry, but I never hear it). Anyway enough about me. I'm here to talk about ya'll.

The word ya'll fixes a fundamental problem with the English language.

It is not cute, backwards or quaint.Other languages have words for plural and singular you. English didn't happen to get that one. Ya'll is a contraction that makes a distinction between singular and plural "you". For example, "When are you going to get here?" could mean you who is just one person, or you who is a group of people. You could fix this by adding another word that is plural, "When are you guys going to get here" This works, but makes a distinction of what you actually is, which won't be appropriate for every situation, lets say if there are females in the group, or the group isn't a group of people. "When are you all going to get here?" just says "all", as in the whole group. That's a little cumbersome though, adding a whole extra word in there, and it sounds so proper. What do we do? Resort to a contraction that's what. Ya'll. "When are ya'll going to get here?"

See? Now I know that may sound a little funny to you (ya'll), and I don't expect everyone to jump on the train, but please, at least stop assuming that the word marks an ignorant southerner.