cellio | verbs

I've been saying the Sh'ma daily for years (including the paragraphs that follow, though mostly with the Reform filter). I've known enough Hebrew to understand, broadly, what I'm looking at for at least a few years, and now, of course, I'm studying the language in more detail. Even so, because I learned the meaning first from the English translation and only later from the Hebrew, I was slow to pick up on something. Until, err, last week.

English needs more verb forms, like it used to have. Specifically, it needs both singular and plural "you".

The first paragraph after the Sh'ma (v'ahavta...) is translated "you shall love God with all your heart, with all your soul, etc etc". That's all singular "you", and both verbs and possessive nouns carry number so that's pretty darn clear. This is the intimate, one-on-one directive from God.

Then, however, it moves on to the plural you -- you will receive rain in its season, etc, and you shall remember the exodus and do the mitzvot, and so on. If I didn't know anything about Hebrew, this change in number would completely elude me. Lots of Jews don't know a lot about Hebrew, rely on the English translations of everything, and, presumably, miss this.

I knew at some level that this happens, that the blessings after the Sh'ma speak to us both individually and corporately. But somehow I didn't make the connection at the deep level that produces "aha" moments. And then one night last week, pretty randomly, it jumped off the page at me.

It might not be very dignified for the siddur to say "y'all shall remember the exodus" etc, but it might be a public service.

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t might not be very dignified for the siddur to say "y'all shall remember the exodus" etc, but it might be a public service.

But that's the singular. "All y'all" is the plural. ;-D

She's from PA. Youns.

Thing is, I briefly dated a Jewish guy from Alabama. He told me that his family had a mezuzah on their house that said "Shalom Y'all!"

The "All y'all" thing I learned from a chaplain when I was in the Transportation Officer's Basic Course.

Also, what the heck are you doing up at this hour?

Couldn't sleep. Today is going to be a long long day.

Youns.

That's the stereotype, but I don't actually hear very much of that here. I think it's folklore with some back-formation (that is, some people say it because they've heard it from outsiders).

Years ago, a friend had a serious car failure on the way home from Pennsic, in central PA.

And that's when I heard it. Often. From everyone local.

Ah. I've heard it described as a Pittsburgh thing, which it doesn't seem to be, but if it's a central-PA thing, that would explain it.

It seems tied to socioeconomic status within Pittsburgh, from what I've heard. Of course, I also heard it pronounced "yeens" a lot, which confused me further.

"Each of you" is a good way to pluralize without sounding hokey. Or the more dramatic "Every man (and woman) here", in your best Wash voice. ("Every man here, drop your weapons and go back inside or I will vaporize this tiny speck of a town!")

When I'm splitting hairs most finely, I would distinguish between "each of you" and "all of you". "All of you should maintain a constant guard rotation, but each of you should sleep from time to time."

That's not hair-splitting; that's a critical difference in meaning.

I grew up (and still live) in PA. I understand the utility of "y'all" as "you all", which is inherently plural. The idea that "y'all" isn't plural enough and that's why we need "all y'all" is going to take some more work. :-)

For a second-person-plural pronoun I would actually prefer "yous"; it's succinct and clear. However, forming the possessive is more problematic. I assume when you form the possessive you say "all y'alls"?

I grew up in Texas (albeit suburban), and 'y'all' seems a perfectly fine second-person plural to me.

I have heard 'yinz' and 'gumbands' occasionally in Pittsburgh, but my outsider guess is that it's fading out, particularly among the intelligentsia with whom I usually associate.

I still say gumbands and "redd up." The first is force of habit, the second conveys nuances that no other word does.

Yinz is an affectiation. I never heard it growing up in the suburbs.

Now, "Picksburgh" drives me up a wall! One of the 911 dispatchers said that. Her "Picksburgh" was like nails on a chalk board.

Rob of UnSpace (http://www.unspace.net/)

I assume when you form the possessive you say "all y'alls"?

Ayup. (she says, mixing regionalisms with gay abandon...)

I was a bit susprised, in the States, to be addressed as "You guys" (by people serving us in restaurants, say): it seemed a bit informal. Eventually I realised that it was being used as a plural form: aha! Looks like English is moving towards supplying that deficiency...

English is moving towards supplying that deficiency in all _sorts_ of ways...'y'all' or 'all y'all', 'youns', 'youse', 'youse guys'...

I *hate* it when servers say "you guys," or "guys". I'm sorry, but they don't know me well enough to call me that. "Folks" is infinitely preferable, to my mind.

Cf. the Cotton Patch Version of Matthew 4:18–22: "As he was walking beside Lake Lanier, he saw two brothers, Simon (who was nicknamed Rock) and Andrew, putting out a net in the lake, since they were fisherman. He says to them, 'Y'all come with me, and I'll train you to net people.' And right away they left their fishing gear and walked with him. Alittle further on he saw two more brothers, Jim and Jack Zebedee, in the boat of their father, getting their nets in shape. He invited them, and right away they left the boat and their father, and walked with him."

Verily, thou hast discovered an aspect of English which hath become deficient. While thine idea hath merit, I myself incline more to resuscitation of forms obsolete yet useful.

I occaisionally go through days where I try to use archaisms, but a lot of them I forget pretty quickly.

I wrote a d'var torah a couple of summers back re a different aspect of sections 1 and 2 of shema not quite matching. I've still got the notes I typed* if you're interested - I think it might overlap with what you wrote & combine into something more (and I may well look into that myself, but I'm too tired and have to get up too early to look into it right now *sigh*).

*Mac, mixed English and Hebrew-w/o-vowels, with most of the Hebrew being direct quotes from the text.

I'm interested in seeing it, if it's convenient. What is the document format? I don't have a Mac, but if it's RTF or something like that, that shouldn't matter. If the Hebrew doesn't come through but the citations do, I can look up that text myself.

It's on my laptop, so next time I've got that up & running... (I'm using our main computer now, which is a desktop PC) I think it's in RTF, and if not there's a good chance it can be saved to some other format(s).

File sent - enjoy.

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Redd up yinz gumbands

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divrei torah on shema

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