Word by Word: The Secret Life of Dictionaries

by Kory Stamper

Dialects are little subsets of a language, and they have their own vocabulary, syntax, phonology, and grammar that sometimes overlap with other dialects of the main language and sometimes don’t. “Y’all” is a dialectal term for the second-person plural pronoun; it’s completely standard in some dialects of American English, particularly the ones in the South, and while it’s common to hear speakers of those dialects use it easily, it’s not a normal part of the dialect we call Standard English. We tend to think of dialects (insofar as we think of them at all) as regional—Southern English, Boston English, Texan—but different social classes, ethnicities, and age-groups can have their own dialects. That means that dialects can be polarizing; they and their speakers are often subject to stereotype and scrutiny.