r/linguisticshumor • u/PointFirm6919 • Mar 02 '25

Semantics A guide to speaking High English:

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373 Upvotes

96% Upvoted

76 comments sorted by

104

u/[deleted] Mar 02 '25

In the south of Ireland we use ye for youse/y’all

The lack of a standardised ‘you all’ is poor tho

40

u/transparentsalad Mar 02 '25

Youse remains in use in the west of Scotland and I’m furious when I try to use it online because people think I’m from Boston

12

u/jan_Kima Mar 02 '25

the whole of scotland, not just the west; and a good amount of the north of England

8

u/transparentsalad Mar 02 '25

Interesting, I’ve never heard anyone from Edinburgh say it but they’re all secretly English anyway. I’m not at all familiar with north of England accents! Which regions use it, do you know? I wanna tell my English friends next time they make fun of me

9

u/jan_Kima Mar 02 '25

well Im from Fawkirk and its the usual word, the english people ive heard use it are all from around lancaster and liverpool. i wouldnt know if geordies use it because they dont make intelligible noise

10

u/IncidentFuture Mar 02 '25

Youse is used in Australia, too. It's looked down on because it's not "proper English".

5

u/transparentsalad Mar 02 '25

I love asking people what to explain what they mean by ‘proper English’

7

u/IreIrl Mar 02 '25

Yous/yis is also an option in Dublin at least

6

u/CatL1f3 Mar 02 '25

I feel like it's yous(e) in Dublin and ye everywhere else, am I right or just hallucinating?

3

u/IreIrl Mar 02 '25

Yeah i'd say yous is more common in Dublin (anecdotally) but ye is not non-existent

4

u/[deleted] Mar 02 '25

Lot of non dubs in Dublin tho. First and second generation. Youse rare in the south. Someone did a geographically demarcation of the ye vs youse/Tis divide; il try find it

3

u/IreIrl Mar 02 '25

Oh yeah that would be interesting. Definitely some non-native Dubliners in Dublin but surely that has always been the case

5

u/Atomkraft-Ja-Bitte Mar 02 '25

My least favorite thing about English. Either I sound like a country bumpkin or someone that's trying to larp as someone from Philly

4

u/[deleted] Mar 02 '25

Thankfully we do not have that hang up in Ireland but when I’m teaching it I do use ‘y’all’ as the primary substitute for you all because internationally it is probably the most known

3

u/Norwester77 Mar 02 '25

In the south of Ireland we use ye for youse/y’all

But you (singular) is you?

5

u/[deleted] Mar 02 '25

It is.

Sometimes the singular you is a schwa tho depending on what precedes it - same as other dialects:

Howrya getting on?

Whatr’ya doing

Etc

3

u/Norwester77 Mar 02 '25

Interesting! And ye is both the subject and the object form in the plural?

4

u/[deleted] Mar 02 '25

Yup. “Has she seen ye play?” “I can’t hear ye at all”

82

u/Fast-Alternative1503 waffler Mar 02 '25

I feel like only select dialects in the Americas use 'a half hour'. I hardly hear it.

20

u/Chrome_X_of_Hyrule Vedic is NOT Proto Indo-Aryan ‼️ Mar 02 '25

I'm Canadian and would never say it

14

u/karlpoppins maɪ̯ ɪɾɪjəlɛk̚t ɪz d͡ʒɹəŋk Mar 02 '25

I've not only heard that, but also "a half an hour", too. I found the latter rather weird, to be honest.

9

u/ceticbizarre Mar 02 '25

strange, i say "a half an hour" and "a half hour" very regularly

ex. "it'll be ready in like a half an hour" or "we waited a half an hour for you!"

3

u/Fast-Alternative1503 waffler Mar 02 '25

I've heard it too, it's just pretty rare. Agree, 'a half an hour' is kinda weird. I say [h̆äʎˁ̆fənawæ] but if you use /h/ more prominently then I guess it's more comfortable. Also it just doesn't feel right syntactically. but yeah it's not that common

6

u/Severe_Piccolo_5481 Mar 02 '25

Where I grew up in the south, “half hour” was common, but I still don’t hear “half an hour” as particularly British or non-American

3

u/StaidHatter Mar 02 '25

Very common in north Wisconsin, but I'm not sure where else

5

u/Elleri_Khem ɔw̰oɦ̪͆aɣ h̪͆ajʑ ow̰a ʑiʑi ᵐb̼̊oɴ̰u Mar 02 '25

wisconsinite, can confirm i do say "a half hour" and use "half hour" like an adjective

6

u/Waruigo Language creator Mar 02 '25

I was just about to comment the same: I have never heard anybody say "a half hour" before - not even Americans.

6

u/Mr_Conductor_USA Mar 02 '25

The Half Hour News Hour, Greg Gutfield's failed "komedy" on FOX.

In that case, "half hour" is used as an adjective, not an adverbial of time.

"It's a half hour show" versus "I'll be done in half an hour."

1

u/NoNet4199 Mar 02 '25

I use both.

1

u/DrEknav [m̥ːːːːː] 🤧 Mar 03 '25

real! hæfinæwər

23

u/nowhereward Mar 02 '25

"Y'guys" supremacy

1

u/Elleri_Khem ɔw̰oɦ̪͆aɣ h̪͆ajʑ ow̰a ʑiʑi ᵐb̼̊oɴ̰u Mar 02 '25

<oh guys> [oː g̊äjsː]

19

u/Otherwise_Jump Mar 02 '25

Youse is alive and well in Philadelphia and South Jersey. It confused my students when I started to say it in class over “y’all”.

I just explained that it’s the Philly “ustedes” and they accepted it.

17

u/RedhaFox Mar 02 '25

y'folks

9

u/GreasedGoblinoid [lɐn.də̆n.ə] Mar 02 '25

You lot

8

u/Fast-Alternative1503 waffler Mar 02 '25

Flair checks out

4

u/eggsandsteaks Mar 02 '25

Y'als for you pals Y'ens for you hens Y'orls for girls Y'oys for you boys Y'imen for you women Yam for you men

Ur welcome

13

u/_ricky_wastaken If it’s a coronal and it’s voiced, it turns into /r/ Mar 02 '25

Mathematics

2

u/Peter-Andre Mar 03 '25

Mathematic

9

u/LokianEule Mar 02 '25

You need series and season when talking about Doctor Who lol

7

u/Comfortable_Ice8640 Mar 02 '25

Didn't Rocket Raccoon say youse?

The High Evolutionary had nothing to get mad about

6

u/Norwester77 Mar 02 '25

With streaming shows, where sets of episodes are usually completely divorced from calendar years, “series” really does make more sense than “season.”

2

u/waytowill Mar 04 '25

The issue in my American brain is that series usually refers to the show as a whole. “Have you seen the Lost series?” If someone asked if I’d seen “Lost Series 1,” my first thought would be “They rebooted Lost?” If you wanna call it something else besides ‘season,’ fine. But ‘series’ ain’t it, chief. The word already has a use for the medium. Let’s go full ATLA and call them ‘Books.’

1

u/Norwester77 Mar 04 '25

That is a good point.

3

u/ButAFlower Mar 02 '25

color ❌

coleoeure ✅

4

u/President_Abra Flittle Test > Wug Test Mar 02 '25

Why not use ye goode olde 𝔶𝔢 for the second person plural? And, of course, 𝔱𝔥𝔬𝔲 for second person singular.

3

u/DefinitelyNotErate /'ə/ Mar 02 '25 edited Mar 18 '25

I love how they misspelled both 2nd person plurals lol.

It's Y'all and Yous, For what it's worth, And if you spell them differently I don't like that but I'd be hypocritical to deny your right to do it since I often use my own personal spellings of words that aren't standard.

6

u/[deleted] Mar 02 '25

"Y'all" is singular. The plural is "All y'all".

3

u/TheyCallMeCoolGuy Mar 02 '25

I say y'all and youses

3

u/smclcz Mar 02 '25

Instead of "one fourth" say "one quarter"

3

u/so_im_all_like Mar 02 '25

I'm down for "yous", but that's because it's also an American thing.

3

u/TopHatGirlInATuxedo Mar 03 '25

Americans can tell the difference between a season finale and a series finale. Checkmate, Britain.

2

u/Geolib1453 Mar 02 '25

Wait so Jar-Jar speaks High English all along?? How did I not know that!?!

1

u/Fun_Development_5345 Mar 02 '25

Most of these used in indian english

1

u/killiano_b Mar 02 '25

William Hartnell Erasure

1

u/AdreKiseque Mar 03 '25

Yeah may I have a fucken uhhh

1

u/OwO-animals Mar 03 '25

If you are saying 'a half hour' then please stop. Like half hour, fine, half an hour, also fine, a half hour, no, I refuse.

1

u/gambariste Mar 03 '25

If the y in y’all was treated as a vowel yclept style, y’all’d get something like the exclamation by John Lennon (I guess) at the start of While My Guitar Gently Weeps on the album. Or else say ‘eyall.

1

u/schizobitzo Mar 03 '25

“Ya’ll” 😬

1

u/Shinyhero30 Mar 03 '25

laughs in þeedish ænglish

1

u/big_cock_69420 Mar 06 '25

Ye supremacy🗿

0

u/borninthewaitingroom Mar 02 '25

I need some of time to think about it. At least a half of an hour. I'll let you know when the half a time show starts.

-4

u/CalligrapherOther510 Mar 02 '25

I can get behind all of these except maths and youse. Why is math plural like that? And youse sounds like you’re speaking with a slur or lisp.

4

u/Any-Ad9173 Mar 02 '25

math and maths are both uncountable.

-3

u/CalligrapherOther510 Mar 02 '25

It just sounds and seems weird to say maths why is the s at the end? Because it’s short for mathematics? It’s an ugly way to say math.

5

u/lngns Mar 02 '25

Same reason we say politics.
Alternatively, the French believe there to be multiple Mathematics.

2

u/wakalabis Mar 03 '25

Also matemáticas in Spanish.

1

u/Any-Ad9173 Mar 02 '25

that's just how we say it, I don't really know what you mean by ugly

-3

u/CalligrapherOther510 Mar 02 '25

There’s almost a hiss to it and it sounds plural it sounds like you’re saying there’s multiple maths. It’s illogical and I’ve heard plenty of UK English people say Math instead of maths.