Youse guys? Somebody driving around Greensboro in a Honda is not from Greensboro! Since we at Greensboro Daily Photo love language, especially dialectology, we are always interested to see what people come up with for vanity tags. We were thrilled to see the above plate. Youse guys, plural of youse, is associated with Philadelphia, working class English. It is the equivalent of Greensboro's ya'll. Professor William Labov of the University of Pennsylvania has studied Philladelphia English extensively.* In December, 2013, The New York Times had the "youse guys" quiz that allowed you, with a mere 25 questions, to establish your personal dialect map. In the pre-Internet era, people had to go to graduate school to have access to surveys like that one. Now, it ia a mere click away.
The North Carolina dialect experts, much in the news lately, are Walt Wolfram and Jerry Reaser, who have co-authored "Talkin' Tar Heel." If you like fun, non-fiction about language, that is a good book to read. In the meantime, what could we put on a vanity tag that would say Greensboro as much as "Yous Guys" says Philadelphia?
*read more, here.
Youse guys are so funny.
Posted by: Stefan Jansson | Tuesday, October 21, 2014 at 06:17 AM
I tried the personal dialect map twice and both times the link had a problem after I submitted the data so I don't know the results, alas.
Posted by: Jane T. Mitchell | Tuesday, October 21, 2014 at 01:51 PM
I would probably go with a mountain term for a vanity plate, maybe the name of one.
Posted by: William Kendall | Tuesday, October 21, 2014 at 07:59 PM