For two centuries, as we have noted in Chapter 8, an important position in the English language remained vacant. It was the second-person plural pronoun, needed to make clear that we are addressing more than one person. The vacancy began, however, not with the plural second-person “ye, you, yours” but with the singular “thou, thee, thine,” which those who spoke English had gradually more and more been avoiding. Something had to take the place of the singular, and in fact something already had been replacing the missing “thou”: the plural “you,” seen as a more polite form of address to one person.
That was not so satisfactory. It meant that “you,” heretofore only a plural, now was a singular too. In the second person, as a result, there was no way to tell a singular from a plural. A distinctive form had to be added in order to allow the distinction once more.
Incidentally, that’s also the case with the similar problem of finding a third-person singular pronoun for English that is gender neutral—something to take the place of “he” or “she” to avoid the sexism we have recently been alerted to. “It” won’t do because it’s not human. “They” is gender neutral but plural. After two centuries of proposals like “s/he” or “qi,” some authorities like the editors of the Oxford English Dictionary recently settled on extending “they” to refer to one person as well as more than one.
The new second-person form could be a singular pronoun, but that would have meant trying something like “thou,” which we had been pointedly avoiding in favor of its replacement “you.” So the vacancy was for the plural. And the race was on to find a worthy replacement.
How would the replacement be determined? Not by decree or by logical deduction. Language generally isn’t logical, it’s just conventional, at least when know-it-all authorities aren’t involved. And they weren’t in this case. Nobody announced a competition for the second-person plural pronoun; nobody vetted proposals. Speakers and writers just used whatever came in their heads, usually not noticing the ad hoc circumstances that might call for particular choices of pronoun.
“Guys” in the 18th century was in no shape to be a candidate. It was too limited in scope, too low class, too vulgar, too slangy. The wisest scholar of language in that century could not imagine it would be a possible solution to the problem.
Among the viable candidates were ones we consider nonstandard nowadays. One obvious candidate involved the simple addition of the suffix –s to make “you” plural, with the spelling “yous” or “youse.” Another possibility was “you ones,” spelled and pronounced “you-uns” or more concisely “yinz.”
Phrases could be candidates: “you folks” or “you people,” for example, but the first is a little too folksy for all situations and the second is a little too distant sometimes. And other such phrases, like “you citizens” or “you children,” are much too limited to be used in all situations.
An important possibility was “you all” or “y’all,” both still in use, the latter predominant in the Old South. “You all” is perfectly fine for formal speech or writing but a little stiff for everyday conversation. “Y’all” is fine for everyday conversation but a little too informal for solemn occasions.
So the second-person pronoun box remained empty for a good two centuries. That was so long that “guys” had time to gradually expand to meet the criteria that would satisfy users. During that time it managed to shift its connotations 180 degrees, from nasty to nice, from evil to benevolent. Not that “guys” was ever officially declared to have met the criteria for second-person plural, and not that there ever were officials involved, and not that users were ever aware there was a competition—except perhaps in the case of “y’all.”
What “guys” succeeded in doing, once its scope had expanded to include everybody, was to make a clear distinction between singular and plural in the second-person pronouns. Whether you said “you guys” or “you,” in either case the –s at the end clearly made it a plural, clearly in contrast with the singular “guy,” which wasn’t a candidate for the singular. The second-person pronouns in this situation, then, were “you” clearly just in the singular and “guys” or “you guys” just in the plural. Problem solved, “guys” ensconced.
Another quality that helped “guy” and “guys” throughout its ascent was its quasi-invisibility. It could develop meanings naturally as contexts changed, without interference from lexicographers, grammarians, schoolteachers, and other authorities.
Linguists make a distinction between unmarked and marked words. In any sentence or discourse, we usually pay little attention to the words we use or hear. Paying attention to particular words would distract from the message we are trying to convey, so in most cases we try to use the most normal vocabulary. Those words are unmarked. The words that distract us from our message are marked. It’s not that either kind is better, just that they have different roles in a sentence. Putting a word in a marked situation draws the listener’s and reader’s attention. (And a particular word can be marked in one context, unmarked in another.)
Viewed this way, “guys” has the advantage of being unmarked. We don’t stop to think, Why did that guy use “guys”? It’s simply the unmarked second-person plural pronoun we all know by heart. And in fact, all the basic elements of English or of any other language are unmarked. If they are marked, distracting someone every time they are used, conversations will be derailed.
It’s especially curious to have attracted so little notice, when it has made a person’s name into a personal pronoun. Never before has this been done in English.
In contrast, “y’all” is often highly marked. It’s like flying a Confederate flag announcing, “I’m Southern.” What do you think, y’all? Doesn’t it stand out as a marked word, at least in that sentence? Contrast that with What do you think, you guys?
There’s one other disadvantage to “y’all” as a second-person pronoun. Very simply, it can be ambiguous. Some people use it in the singular as well as the plural, once again blurring the distinction. “Y’all” has two strong indications of plural, “y-” being an abbreviation of “you,” and “all” in other contexts making clear it’s plural: “You all should get some sleep” is close to y’all should get some sleep (Plural? Singular? Too confusing).
So the game is over. “You guys” has made it to the unmarked center of the language. Resistance is futile.
But who has won? The terrorist Guy Fawkes, after all? The women who have extended the range of a very masculine word to encompass everyone? Or just everyone, now, who has the privilege to routinely and for the most part unconsciously use “you guys”? Or maybe all three?