New Jersey Fun Facts (#2)

Those of you who've known Michael or are from the great nation of Texas are already familiar with the second person plural pronoun "ya'll." I would now like to introduce to you the South Jersey/Philadelphia equivalent: "yous" or "yous guys".


Urban Dictionary offered the following definitions for "yous guys":

1. Yous guys are all wrong. Yous guys is a northeast phrase (often used by jersey girls and long islanders) meaning you guys. The extra 's' is not silent and is added for no reason whatsoever.
   "Eh, maybe later I'll meet up with yous guys." "Yous guys keep your mouths shut." "Very funny, least I'm not stupid like yous guys."
   
2. A version of "you guys," which is mostly associated with New Jersey, but is also heard in other metropolitan areas, such as New York and Chicago. It may also be spelled "youse guys" and is much better than saying "y'all." "Yous guys want to go to the concert tonight?"

People really do talk like that up here. At Walmart the other night, the cashier handed us our bags and said, "Yous have a good night." At marriage class, every Wednesday, our small group leaders greet us, "How yous been doing this week?" During post-season every one was asking, "Did yous see the Phillies game last night?" Now they're all asking, "What do yous think about the Eagles?"

Perhaps our brains are over compensating. All the other personal pronouns have singular and plural representations, how come the second person got left out? And we all, in our respective regional ways, are trying to make it better. I wish I had retained all that wonderful history of English knowledge passed on to me by Prof Hagge in English 411, to offer some other sort of explanation as to why you is different that the others and why we feel the need to intercede. But I sold the textbook the day of my final and have not meditated much on those matters since.

I think I'm going to start writing down real-life instances of "yous" and "yous guys" so that yous can see how it's really used.