Talk:youse

Upper Midwest?

Why does this say Upper Midwest. Never used here. This is a NYC Bronx term.

The original article said Milwaukee specifically. "Upper midwest" is probably too broad. Bronx should definitely be included. -dmh 00:21, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Addendum: The AHD says "Chiefly Northern US", though I doubt you'll see much of it west of Minnesota. It's also listed in a "Cheddarhead dictionary", supporting the idea that it's used in Wisconsin. I also see it in an article on "How to Speak or Talk Like A True Minnesota Person", and in references to Chicago. (Note for non-US readers: Minnesota, Wisconsin and Chicago are all in the Upper Midwest. Milwaukee is in Wisconsin. A cheddarhead is somone from Wisconsin.)

The New York version acts differently: it may occasionally be grammatically singular (e.g., So youse wants a Brooklyn T-Shirt? or if youse is from da Bronx). It's also worth checking whether a Minnesotan or Wisconsonian would say "all of youse" (probably) or "youse two guys" (not sure).

Finally, it's also used as an alternate spelling of "you's" for "you is" in AAVE. -dmh 00:39, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)

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Note that I carefully say "gramatically singular" for the East Coast usage. I simply don't know whether it's semantically singular, plural or both. -dmh 15:17, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)

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Rfv-synonyms:

all o' ya'z, yiz guys (Philadelphia)

—Ruakh_TALK 13:53, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

We don't really have a home for characteristic regional pronunciations of typical non-idiomatic phrases, do we? The eye-dialect often may not be attestable and would be highly variable. Should we have "Appendix:English pronunciation Philadelphia" and similar? I'm not be sure how a normal user would find it without something like soundex search, but it seems relevant for us. It seems a big mistake to have a large number of regional pronunciations unhidden under the L3/4 Pronunciation header even if there is a valid corresponding entry for a word or phrase. DCDuring TALK 15:10, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

The phrases all yaz and yiz guys are attested in Google Books. This would lead me to list yaz and yiz as alternate forms of youse, with citations demonstrating actual usage. These are attested spellings in written work, which may convey regional pronunciation, but they are not pronunciations in the sense we use the term. —Michael Z. 2009-09-12 16:47 z

I didn't mean the sequence of letters. I meant the pronunciation that they are evidently intended to represent. I believe we could use some Appendices on geographic and possibly other variations. all yuz and all yaz seem idiomatic because of the funny grammar (or ellipted "of", depending on how you analyze it) and worth entries if attestable. "yiz guys" doesn't seem CFI-idiomatic.

RFV failed, synonyms removed. —Ruakh_TALK 01:58, 26 December 2009 (UTC)

Entry entirely wrong

The entry currently has two meanings:

1. (regional) You (plural). Sometimes as youse guys
2. (Boston, New York and Philadelphia) You (singular).

Fine. But then "youse" has no relation to "yous" and is not used in Scotland and Ireland.

1. I'm not even sure that it's a pronoun in "youse guys". (Sounds more like a determiner, like "those" in "those guys".)
2. And "yous" is never used as "you (singular)" - at least not in Scotland or Ireland.

Maybe the first definition is just badly written. Should the "youse guys" example just be removed or moved to somewhere else. If we do that, then it would be correct that that meaning of "youse" (i.e. "you (plural)") is an alternative spelling of the "yous" used in Scotland and Ireland.

It wouldn't be a loss if someone just blanked this article and started again. Gronky (talk) 09:41, 6 June 2013 (UTC)

As far as "youse guys" goes, I believe the intention is that the phrase as a whole is the pronoun, although I would attest that it can be parsed as a determiner+noun combination in this case. "Youse guys" is a common enough pronominal set-phrase, at least in Yorkshire (the extent of my knowledge on the subject) and could probably be put into a usage note somewhere. ATMarsden (talk) 08:40, 17 June 2013 (UTC)

I would suggest something along the following lines:

====Pronoun====

youse

1. (regional) You (plural).
2. (Boston, New York and Philadelphia) You (singular).

=====Usage notes=====

Youse as a plural is found in Australia, England, Scotland, Ireland, New Zealand, South Africa, parts of the northern United States, and parts of Ontario.

Youse as a singular is found in Philadelphia, New York, Boston and scattered throughout working class Italian-American communities in the Rust Belt.

Youse is also used as a determiner in the pronominal set-phrase youse guys, found in Yorkshire and Scotland.

I am not a regular Wiktionary editor, hence why I haven't put this edit up. If someone could help out, that would be appreciated. ATMarsden (talk) 08:49, 17 June 2013 (UTC)