Why does the Dew spell Ya'll the way it does?
Sometimes I feel like this is "The Most Heated Language Discussion Out There"!(not really, but the amount of email I receive telling me I'm spelling Ya'll wrong is mindboggling.)
This has got to be one of the most contested words in the English language these days. The amusing part is I don't think it was even considered a word until a few years ago when Webster added it to the dictionary.
So here's the issue. It was always slang, and slang by it's nature, is spelled however that region says it. I grew up in Mississippi and have always spelled it ya'll. All my friends spell it that way. It could be because we didn't really say "you", we said "ya" so we spelled it that way.
Basically, everything I have read says that you spell it the way you do depending on your region and your accent. The "you" or "ya" have a lot to do with it.
I've checked definitions for it, and found 15,000 different answers.
I will say this, everyone can spell it how they want for all I care. I will not correct them. I will not even edit it in any article for the Dew if it's spelled differently than the way I spell it.
But I am awfully tired of receiving rude emails from total strangers telling me I'm incorrect. Here's the deal, you do it your way, and I'll do it mine! Sound good?
