plural you in the UK

"Youse" - meaning "you" in both the singular and the plural - is quite common in the most pronounced Scouse accent (that of the Liverpool/Merseyside area of north west England. The fact that "youse" is also a feature of the Southern Ireland accent is proof that there is a direct link between that and the Scouse accent...in fact the Southern Irish accent is practically the basis of Scouse in the first place.

As you know you have the choice of accent on your sat navs and in the UK the Scouse accent is one of the least popular among people making this choice for their sat navs. Amazingly, it seems that the Geordie accent is the most popular choice but I would reckon it would be so more among Northerners than Southerners in England, but I could be wrong.

I just can't imagine your average driver on the roads of Surrey or Sussex of Kent would opt for a Geordie voice coming out at them from their sat navs telling them which route to take on the Isle of Thanet or up on the South Downs. Likewise a Geordie driver wouldn't take too kindly to a "posh knob of a Southern softie twang" doing the same as they whoosh past the Angel of the North.


http://drivingpassion.merseyblogs.co.uk/2008/06/geordie-accent-favorite-with-b.html

On a slightly removed note, but still relevant, it's interesting that English ALWAYS differentiates between 'YOURSELF' AND 'YOURSELVES'. i.e.

Behave yourself v. behave yourselves

The plural of 'you' is 'you'. I would say to a group of friends, 'What are you doing / what are you up to?'

Other variants that could be used would be 'you lot' and 'you all'.

English never got rid of its second-person plural, but rather got rid of its informal second-person singular--i.e. "thou." "You" used to serve the dual function of meaning "y'all" and meaning the second-person singular in more formal contexts.

When "thou" disappeared and "you" took its place, numerous dialectical or idiolectical variations flooded into the hole where a 2nd Person plural used to be: "youse," "you all," "y'all," "yinz," or numerous "you" + plural noun variations such as "you guys," "you lot," "you lads," etc.

In New Zealand in the seventies, I noticed other kids at school using "youse" as a plural form of address, but got scolded for speaking ungrammatically when I tried it at home. I no longer live in NZ so can't comment on the current state of the language...

<<In New Zealand in the seventies, I noticed other kids at school using "youse" as a plural form of address, but got scolded for speaking ungrammatically when I tried it at home. I no longer live in NZ so can't comment on the current state of the language... >>


When I was at school in the early 2000s we used to use "youse" quite a lot. We knew it was wrong but we used it anyway. However, as soon as we got older we immediately stopped using it because it sounds juvenile/lower class. Lower class because you hear it used regularly in Maori dialect, which is the NZ equivalent of AAVE.