Dear Etiquetteer:
I know that you were born and raised in Louisiana. Please help this born and bred Yankee with his “y’all” problem. I have asked other Southerners about this and have been routinely "tut-tutted." How can one abate the revolting affectation of people born north of the Mason-Dixon Line dropping y'alls like hush puppies at a fish fry? It is revolting because it screams faux casualness. When used by non-Southerners it always seems like one is being gently ribbed, and I don't like smudges of BBQ sauce in the discourse I am part of.
I know I sound like someone rapping his umbrella on the counter. So be it. I do so unabashedly. If you are Southern by all means revel in the glorious idiom of William Faulkner, Flannery O'Connor, and Tennessee Williams. But those of you who cannot claim their drawl by birthright please stick to the script you learned while skating on a frozen pond or ducking into a doorway to avoid a frosty gust*.
So you see Etiquetteer, I wish to admonish, but I know too well that it is impolite to do so. What's to be done about this addiction to Dixie's diction?
Dear Yankee:
Once the horses are out of the corral, it’s tough to get them back inside. Applauding the National Anthem or clinking glasses after a toast are not Perfectly Proper, but those battles have been long lost, never mind how valiantly Etiquetteer and other writers may continue to fight them.
You may find (cold) comfort in the knowledge that other etiquette writers don’t exactly approve of slang, but acknowledge that it needs to be used with obvious humor to be effective. Amy Vanderbilt Herself wrote in her 1954 Complete Book of Etiquette “ . . . innocuous slang expressions sound particularly inept from a grown man or woman, unless one is using them quite consciously and in fun.” [emphasis Etiquetteer’s] And Etiquetteer’s revered Emily Post, in her 1937 edition of Etiquette, says “All colloquial expressions are little foxes that spoil the grapes of perfect diction, but they are very little foxes.” Mrs. Post felt that the Pretentious were a greater threat to Best Society than the Ironic.
In other words, the “y’all” problem is, uh, y’all’s.
Your query immediately brought to mind the attempts of the late Mame Dennis to assimilate after her marriage to Beauregard Jackson Pickett Burnside. Aside from the “the roar of crinoline beneath her skirts,” she adopted the Southland’s Signature Pronoun “both singular and plural.” At least she did right up to the second she met her hostile mother-in-law, after which she knew there was No Hope.
If you really want to mount the barricades over this, however, you could attempt to take on the role of Mother Burnside with these Y’alling Yankees. Fix them with a Steely Glare over your Beaky Nose**, make your lips as thin and disapproving as possible, and say “I was not aware of your Southern ancestry.” Etiquetteer takes no responsibility for the consequences, especially if it turns into a Long Discussion About Feelings.
With respect, this Yankee Epidemic of Y’alls sounds unique to your situation. Perhaps you are circulating among a particularly closed community bonding intimately with Faulkner, O’Connor, and Williams? Did those writers use the Southland’s Signature Pronoun in their writing? Launch that topic and see where it goes. But really, you should expand your circle to include people interested in Yankee writers like Edith Wharton, Nathaniel Hawthorne, or Robert B. Parker.
Etiquetteer does have an issue with y’all: inappropriate use of the apostrophe. Y’all is not yall, and it is certainly not ya’ll. It is y’all, and that’s that. Y’all.
Etiquetteer wishes y’all success in cultivating a new, y’all-free circle of conversationalists.
*Etiquetteer by the way, wouldn’t dream of avoiding a Frosty Gust, but be sure to use only the good bourbon, and stir it, don’t shake it.
**The beakiness of Mother Burnside’s nose is commented on more than once.