Trigger Warning: The following might be considered “cultural appropriation adjacent.” (Whatever that means.)
Caveat #1: I was born in California, and have never lived in the American South.
Caveat #2: I have not made a study of this.
I worked in Corporate America for forty-five years and in that time, I definitely learned how to craft an effective letter and email. I knew my audience and structured my missives accordingly. With superiors, I never broke with formality; with peers and direct reports, I tried to keep it cordial, supportive, and as concise as the technical content allowed. With contractors, I was respectful but made sure we all knew who was paying the bills.
In private business correspondence, this skill came in handy. In the early days, a well-structured letter/email could cut through a good deal of back-and-forth. Later, when dealing more and more with a rotating cadre of Customer Service reps situated offshore, summaries of data and past conversations helped speed things through the predetermined scripts immensely.
Even so, there was always that one colleague, that one manager, that one business agent, that one liaison officer, who was just not going to care, for whom the bottom line was all, and for whom I was simply an annoyance to be dealt with ASAP.
This is not to say that I never back down. Forty-five years in Corporate America teaches you, if nothing else, a modicum of humility and the true value of one’s time. I learned long ago how to pick my battles, how to weigh success versus the cost. I could still hold to my conviction but let you have your way, because oh maybe you’d find out I was right soon enough, or maybe my time was better spent preparing for the ramifications than convincing you of their inevitability. Or maybe I could be wrong; toss-ups happen.
But when I do decide to stand my ground, my correspondence takes on a different tone. I become precise. I tend to reiterate salient points that have not been acknowledged. And, when I really get annoyed, I tend to toss in a “y’all.” No, it’s not like I go all Southern on the recipient. I’m not conversant in the dialects of our American South and don’t pretend to be, but I have noticed that a single, well-place “y’all,” especially after I’ve already switched from “you” to “you folks,” can shift the attitude on the other end of the conversation dramatically. Suddenly, things I’ve been repeating are heard, instructions or conditions are acknowledged.
I cannot tell you whether it’s the cumulative shift in tone that effects this change, or if the sudden appearance of “y’all” acts as a signifier for “this conversation is now on very shaky ground,” but regardless (and anecdotally), there is a difference.
On the other hand, I also use “y’all” when conversing with family and friends, in a casual manner. It’s not a studied thing. It’s just a great word; it’s inclusive, gender-indistinct, singular and plural, and can give a quick note (I think) a bit of that slower Faulknerian charm.
Now, the experience you’ve had with the word in question will likely be quite different than mine, given my distinctly West Coast upbringing, but I still think it’s worth pondering.
What do y’all think?
😉
k
Kurt R.A. Giambastiani 
I remember going through the consideration of y’all decades ago vesting my east coast cousin. It was back in the 60s when I was visiting as a kid. We were having an argument. I said he spoke with an accent for some reason or other and he yelled at me that I was in his home state and I was the one who spoke with an accent, pointing out I had said, “Y’all.”
Wait, what? The argument ending as we started discussing that word as I denied it at first. I said, “I said, ‘you all’.” He said, “Nope. You said, ‘y’all’.” He won in the end.
That got me interested in Southern idioms and my long time favorite has become, “Bless your little heart”, a carrier phrase whose meaning is supplied almost entirely by tone, timing, and social context with all the meaning that it can entail. Not the least of which is, “You are being foolish or offensive, and I’m judging you.” If not, “You no longer exist in this conversation… or community.”
As for dealing with others in a corporate environment as a vendor support person (don’t they support us?)…yeah.
I’ve learned that, like “y’all” (or “bless your little heart”), some words sound polite but exist to signal that the conversation has shifted and meaning is now coming from context, not courtesy.
Or worse.
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“Bless your heart” is one of those Swiss Army phrases: many purposes, most of them sharp, all useful in the proper context.
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I’ve tried using ya’ll but have switched to Youse Peoples.
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