Grammatical Error in Under the Dome

[baduizm1974]

Hello All! New member but not new reader. I have been reading Stephen King novels for about 20 years!

I wanted to address a grammatical error I found in Under the Dome. The soldier from South Carolina addresses the young boy as "y'all". This is incorrect. Y'all is a plural noun, not a singular noun. It is a contraction of "you all". Therefore, you would never say "y'all" to one person. I considered writing Mr. King a letter because I didn't want him to keep using y'all in the wrong way but then I found this forum instead. Maybe he will read this message! Oh, and by the way, I was born and raised and still live in South Carolina so I know what I'm talking about. I'm not just speaking out my butt. :wink2:

[danie]

In the Wikipedia article about "y'all," there are some who believe the word can be used in a singular fashion.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Y%27all

Also, if Mr. King used "ya'll" in dialogue, and we're going with using the word as plural only, it's not really considered a grammatical error of the writer, but that of the character, and that's just part of making conversations seem real.

[rjt65]

Ok first welcome--

2nd I am a NY'r so not the y'all expert--- but do know that in a grammatical sense you all would be plural

However being in natl and global companies I have several friends and business associates that have addressed me as y'all when directly referencing directly to me (yep southerners!) .... as part of the plural (like a Yankee fan) but used to addres moi-singular.

so though i cannot remember nor care (lazy me) to look up the use in UTD I can see when he addresses him he may mean all the peeps under the dome but a direct reference to the boy (analogous to my point of when people y'all me as a Yankee fan-so singular but as part of the plural Yankee universe)

capisce?

so mayhaps this is how it was meant..and not a grammatical error in the sense that peeps sometimes intermingle the plural and the singular?

maybe si maybe no?:wink2:




Hello All! New member but not new reader. I have been reading Stephen King novels for about 20 years!

I wanted to address a grammatical error I found in Under the Dome. The soldier from South Carolina addresses the young boy as "y'all". This is incorrect. Y'all is a plural noun, not a singular noun. It is a contraction of "you all". Therefore, you would never say "y'all" to one person. I considered writing Mr. King a letter because I didn't want him to keep using y'all in the wrong way but then I found this forum instead. Maybe he will read this message! Oh, and by the way, I was born and raised and still live in South Carolina so I know what I'm talking about. I'm not just speaking out my butt. :wink2:

[Kintaro]

You've clearly never been to Texas, where they say it to EVERYONE.....:laugh:

[Lone Eagle]

I have to agree with you. But ya know, when you have a thousand monkeys pounding on a thousand computers, somewhere along the way, one of them is going to make a mistake.:cool2:

[Sam Catoe]

I too found the mistake rather glaring, being from SC as well, but I see it more as just coming from someone who doesn't know better. Besides that, I have heard (and yes, even done so myself) y'all used improperly as a singular. Even with that, I have to say that no person from South Carolina would have sounded the way the soldier did in the book. We just don't speak that way down here.

Sorry Sai King, but ya missed it on that one.

[Bev Vincent]

Around here in Texas y'all is used as a singular form of address. The plural form is "all y'all"!

[Jay P Lang]

A little picky I think. I lived in NC for five years and got called 'y'all' all the time, even when it was just me. The thing about grammar in dialog is that its up to the character, how he sounds in the writers head. If he said 'Y'all' to one person in his head, then he said it in the story. I doubt King doesn't know what Y'all means.

[rose key]

Okay, I'm originally from New York, and now live in Florida, so I know nothing about this, except what I've heard from people with southern accents who live down here. I personally have been addressed as "y'all", as in "Y'all wanna git that work done before the end of the day" from an ex-boss. I've also heard people address their kids in the stores by saying "y'all" to the child.
Maybe they are not being grammatically correct in doing so (definately they are not) but that's the manner of speech used, and probably just a slang used here that is not the norm where you come from.

[danie]

Well, I see my Wikipedia link didn't work for some reason, but if you go to Wikipedia and type "y'all" in the search box, you should be able to read the article.:blush:

[danie]

Oops, and I just noticed I put the apostrophe in the wrong place in my second "y'all."
:blush:again.

[TBlack]

"Y'all" may be singular or plural as it contains both "You" & "All".
It encompasses not only the person you're speaking with completely but also those who may be connected with him at that moment.
If speaking to a large group however, the proper terminolgy would in fact be "All Y'all".
But for us peoples who use this particular contraction on a regular basis...
"Well we's ain't too overly concernulated`bout grammarical usages in talkin' good cuz you's all is jus friends here!"

[boogerb53]

Sorry...have to disagree. In Arkansas and Missisippi, we say y'all to everyone...be it one person or many. It's a Southern thing.....

[davemelnick]

I'm fr/ FL & ya'll is commonly used in The Deep South alright.:grinning:
Hello All! New member but not new reader. I have been reading Stephen King novels for about 20 years!

I wanted to address a grammatical error I found in Under the Dome. The soldier from South Carolina addresses the young boy as "y'all". This is incorrect. Y'all is a plural noun, not a singular noun. It is a contraction of "you all". Therefore, you would never say "y'all" to one person. I considered writing Mr. King a letter because I didn't want him to keep using y'all in the wrong way but then I found this forum instead. Maybe he will read this message! Oh, and by the way, I was born and raised and still live in South Carolina so I know what I'm talking about. I'm not just speaking out my butt. :wink2:

[ChristineB]

While not from South Carolina so can't speak to how people use this there, I can say in the rest of the south, it is used for 1 or many, doesn't matter to us. :) Even as far east as Georgia it is used that way. So this guy may have been around alot of Georgians while growing up and that is the way he uses the word. *shurg*

[Bryan James]

South Carolina is a tricky state to write. I'm from the southernmost part, yet I have no real accent accent. One hour's drive up the coast makes yuh Suthen, two hours makes you Hillbilly-New Jersey.

"Y'all" is often used both in the singular and plural here, but I only use it for the latter.

Because I'm a shithead.

~BJS

[Sam Catoe]

I've used it for one person before, but it was more than that about the way the character talked. It just sounded wrong. I don't remember which page/area of the book the character was introduced and can't find it right now either, but it didn't strike right. The manner in which he said it didn't sound right. I can only equate it to me writing that a guy from Brooklyn walked up to a friend of his and said "Hey, youze guyz, what'z going on with ya'z?" That may be right, it may not, but that's how I wrote it so that's what he said. And while it may be the way some people talk in that area, it may not strike as quite right.

And for the record, regardless of how it is used in everyday speech, y'all is plural. My grandmother says she "seen it on tv the other day" often, but that doesn't make it correct English.

[Jay P Lang]

The point is that, in dialog, correct english goes out the window.

Just look at our old president. I'm sure he'd have come up with some brilliant stategeries to get them out of the dome.

[Dobro46]

Anybody from the South knows that "y'all" is singular....."all y'all" is plural.

[Jay P Lang]

He'd probably blame it on china, saying their hiding domes of mass deflection, we must act now before we can't stock walmart.

[Spideyman]

West Coast Florida- born in NY. Y'all is commonly used to mean singular or plural. In the south they just say it as it comes. Hope that helps "y'all".

[The Outsider]

You've clearly never been to Texas, where they say it to EVERYONE.....:laugh:

I am from Texas and live in Texas, and we don't all say it. But yeah, alot of people casually use it like my mom, and if I'm not careful it might slip out :blush:

Anyways, y'all can be used singular and plural, as my parents will say y'all to me a lot. ALso someone above explained it very well, as in the singular version of yall being used to refer to a single person and also their affiliation with a whole group.

Basically, in the south, you will probably here y'all a lot, but in Texas, we do not ride horses, wear cowboy hats and boots, and we don't all have a southern drawl. There are some hicks that are the exception, though... :down:

[missdebbie]

Why are so many people so hung up on this. "Y'all" is obviously a slang term and we use slang when we speak. It seems to me that this is an authentic way of writing dialogue. So many people seem to be intent on picking this book apart and looking for mistakes. Can't "y'all" just enjoy the book. I have been. It really is a huge, epic read, along the same lines as "The Stand" and I'm absolutely thrilled to be reading it. I pick up on every mistake I read (and usually put these down to mistakes in the printing process), but have been so enchanted by this excellent book that any glitches are barely registering. I'm just so intent on reading the book - it's brilliant - I'm deriving so much enjoyment from reading it that these small printing errors hardly matter. To those of you who seem to be reading the book and performing a literary critique as you do so - Get a Life and enjoy the book!

[Patricia A]

I spent a lot of my childhood in Tennessee and I lived in Texas for a number of years and I happen to have a discernible Southern accent and it by no means makes me a hick.
What makes me a hick is this here dang darn truck load 'a chickens I drive around in. Didn't happen ta bring an spare beer wijadidja?

[smerdyakov]

I live in south carolina and generally only hear y'all used in the plural. Anyhow, that's the way my family say it -- but we tha sophisticated types.

[smerdyakov]

If King would have done his research, he would have said that dome stinks like pluff mud, youwe!

[91rewoT]

I'm a born and bred northerner, but have lived all over this great country of ours, including Texas, Virginia, and the Panhandle of Florida. In every one of those states I was referred to and heard others referred to as "y'all". A group of people or a single person, didn't seem to matter. A teacher I worked with was fond of saying "Y'all just ain't right!" when speaking to one person....(she was right too! ha!)...anyway, I just thought I'd throw in my two cents worth. Oh, and if you ever hear anyone refer to a single person as "You Guys", that would be wrong. Definitely. "You Guys" is plural. Everyone up north knows that. And it refers to females as well as males. Seriously. C'mon You Guys...

[koujuke]

I am from Georgia, but I did not skip a beat reading the y'all part. I was more concerned with the boy's sad story.

[Denise Marsden]

Are you having a laugh.

[kingsjester_17]

Really? Y'all are being a little nitpicky. hahahahaha. HOWEVER, I do appreciate seeing all of us so dedicated to The Master that we take time to post. I don't think the editors looked for that kind of geographic colloquialism (sp?). If they missed Horace turning into Hector for a couple of pages, Sammy Bushey's car going from a Chevy with cancer of the rocker panels to a Toyota with flattened tires and her sweat pants turning into jeans, I don't think misusing y'all was even on the radar. God Bless Mr. King and all of us constant readers.

KJ_17

[teejay17]

How about this: "y'all" is ungrammatical. Period.

[Bryan James]

Well, maybe the S.C. soldier WAS as jarring as a forgotten toothpick in a picnic sandwich, but he was a good dang guy. Y'all.

~BJS

[RandomMan]

I spent a lot of my childhood in Tennessee and I lived in Texas for a number of years and I happen to have a discernible Southern accent and it by no means makes me a hick.
What makes me a hick is this here dang darn truck load 'a chickens I drive around in. Didn't happen ta bring an spare beer wijadidja?

I love that....when I tote chickens either to or from First Monday...I put them in a pen I made that fits in the back of my truck. I am an educated Educator, but it is during this time I feel like the biggest HICK in TEXAS!! lol!

and yes...I say yall all the time...singular or plural. wrong or right...we understand each other!

[jchanic]

How about this: "y'all" is ungrammatical. Period.

Y'all may be technically ungrammatical, but as a depiction of speech it is perfectly acceptable. Don't forget--it's usage that eventually determines what's grammatical or not, not a textbook.

John

[Mookie]

Writers are human like the rest of us they make mistakes. Just because they are a writer by trade, does not make them a master at grammar. When I first joined SKMB I was reading Firestarter from my local library ( hardcover large print edition) it was filled with errors that unfortunately Someone had taken a pencil to and crossed out or underlined throughout the whole book. It drove me batty, I wanted to take an eraser to it all. I don't mind some imperfections. That's probably why, I enjoyed the manuscript for the cannibals( I loved looking at all the corrections etc.) it wasn't perfect, but still a good read, warts and all.

[PatInTheHat]

Y'alls evidently misinformed..it's certainly a mystery. Semicolon.

[OzTheGweat]

I agree that "y'all" is only used to more than one person, just like "ye" is applied to more than one lad or lassie in the UK. But, since it was dialogue (why is this word a typo according to spell check?), it's impossible to tell if it was King's mistake or that of the character. I agree that it is more realistic coming from the character than just the narration. Good find though.

Has anyone every picked up on "Seven Flags" in Needful Things, as opposed to Six Flags? I found this absolutely hilarious -- I love when King purposely shows he cannot include trademarked names in text without permission.

[amberx101]

You've clearly never been to Texas, where they say it to EVERYONE.....:laugh:

I am from Texas and yes we use Y'all alot, but I have NEVER heard it used in the singular form!
No one uses it in the singular form here, it doesn't make sense. Only part of the novel that made me frown a bit.

[JohnDalglish]

Hi,

Yet again, the original poster hasn't been back, the world seems full of half-empty people IMO

The cat crept into the crypt, crapped, and crept out again!

Long days and pleasant nights

[wally wonder]

i imagine there's one or two transplanted yankees down south misusing the ya'll phrase all the time, probably got both hands jammed in their pockets, as well, instead of just their fingers, thumbs hooked over the pocket-top. ya'll just nair hear bout it, content as the southerner is, for the good lord to mete justice out, three of four generations down the line, as opposed to your basic yankee, unwilling to wait that long.

[pike747]

I have found just about every SK book/story to be full of grammatical errors. He writes how he hears people speak which is often incorrect yet strangely true. That is one of the many things I love about his work. It makes me curious about other people from places I have never been. I often attempt to write this way and it is challenging to get it right.
"Rollover minutes? The f... 're thiose?" Or something kind of like that from Cell. I loved that small part and it made the character very real for me.:cool2:

[AmandaBroadfoot]

An open letter to Stephen King ....



I'm a huge fan. I dearly love the Dark Tower series. The Stand, I believe, is one of the best American novels ever written. Hearts in Atlantis, The Green Mile, The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon, Misery, all of your short story collections, and the memoir, On Writing, are on my bookshelf.



In fact, I met you in Tallahassee when you did a reading at Seven Days of Opening Nights in 2006. I was very pregnant with my son, and when I asked you to autograph On Writing to him, you did so and then layed your hands on my pregnant belly and closed your eyes. When he's having a particularly hellish tantrum, I often think of you.


I must confess that there are quite a few of your horror novels that I haven't read: Cujo, The Tommyknockers, Pet Semetery, The Dark Half, are among them. It's not that I don't believe those are equally well-written. I'm sure they are. It's just that I'm easily scared and don't enjoy the process. During the daylight hours, I'm a perfectly sensible 38-year-old mother who does not believe in ghosts or demons or such, but at 3 a.m., when I'm up by myself feeding the baby, I'm pretty sure there's a scary vampire baby scratching at the window outside. (Yeah, thanks for Salem's Lot; that was 30+ years ago, and I'm still freaked out by that flying vampire kid.)


Your latest novel, The Dome, as every critic I've read agrees, is perhaps your best ever. I have been listening to the audio recording and have been absolutely riveted. The reader is pretty good, though I can't understand why Jim Rennie, a man described as living in Chester's Mill, Maine, his whole life, has a very strong Southern accent, except maybe the reader thinks it makes him sound more evil. As a Southerner, that doesn't really bother me, though. In fact, I have an image of a very familiar Southern baddie in mind when picturing him; the characters of The Dome remind me of many heroes and villains I've known in my life. That's the genius of it; the characters are so real, so believable, that I've been genuinely worried about them since I've started reading the book (or listening to it, I should say).


No, I was utterly on board till close to the 30-hour mark in the recording when little Ollie Dinsmore goes to the dome and starts throwing rocks. A soldier on the other side, described as hailing from South Carolina, says to him, "Will y'all stop doing that? It's driving me crazy."


Little Ollie is alone, the only one throwing rocks. "Y'all" is plural, though, a contraction of "you all." There are no exceptions to this rule. It is always plural, and despite its common misuse by fictional Southerners in movies and books written by Yankees (and portrayed by non-Southern actors who all for some reason sound like Jimmy Carter), it is never used as anything but a plural by any living breathing Southerner. The most ignorant, grammar-challenged one of us (and some people think all of us are) will not use "y'all" in any way except the plural.


If you hear a Southerner using "y'all" while speaking to one person, he is referring to that person and a group of others not currently in the room. For instance, I might ask, "Are y'all going to the family reunion on Saturday?" and the listener would know that I meant him and his family. If I were at the dinner table with one other Southern person and asked, "Could y'all pass the salt?" that person would probably turn around to look behind him, or think I were hallucinating.


I realize we don't make it easy on y'all (meaning all non-Southerners). We have been known to indicate a group as "all y'all," which is, in fact, redundant. And the possessive of "y'all" is "y'all's," which is often pronounced "YAL-ziz," as in "Is this y'all's dog? He was digging in my yard."


I'm not saying this to be a smart aleck. Quite the contrary. I have huge respect for you. I will never be the writer you are. Your books are so well researched and your characters so real that I can't imagine such a glaring error passed your notice. Because it is glaring -- to anyone south of the Mason-Dixon line or east of the Mississippi. We hear it all the time in movies and on TV, but it's still wrong. And it grates. If I knew more about the speech of people from Maine, I would try to draw an analogy, but I promise you that if I ever write anything with a character from the northeast in it, I'll ask a local to check my colloquialisms.


In the meantime, I'm going to pretend that you cut a sentence from "The Dome" which described how the soldier had double-vision and therefore believed that Ollie and his twin were throwing rocks. Because I'm not going to stop reading. I can't. This book is awesome.


Hope y'all (you and your family) are doing well ...


Amanda Broadfoot

[Wanderer From Ys]

Don't forget--it's usage that eventually determines what's grammatical or not, not a textbook.

John

Something is either grammatically correct, or it's not. A lot of people saying the wrong thing doesn't make it correct. Most people don't even bat an eye when they hear "irregardless, or "I could care less", but that doesn't make them correct. If you care about being grammatically correct, you should never say y'all, or all y'all, which is just redundant. However none of are robots, and we don't speak perfect English all the time. Slang is determined by usage, and y'all is slang. Since people use it singular or plural, then both are correct.