Your'n

A forum for discussing US dialects (accents).
sluggo
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Your'n

Postby sluggo » Mon Dec 22, 2008 2:00 pm

Here's one I haven't seen brought up- the locals 'round these parts often use your'n for a 2nd person singular possessive adjective (not sure if it's used in plural).

The derivation seems perceptible enough: "your one" would be more logical than yours following the pattern of "this one" and "that one". That is an assumption though.

Seems to manifest as an Appalachian Scots-Irish usage.
Is that regionally accurate?

Interestingly Dictionary.com sez:

Origin:
1350–1400; ME, equiv. to your + -n, as in mine


-wheras yours is described as about 100 years older, a mere eyeblink on that scale...
Stop! Murder us not, tonsured rumpots! Knife no one, fink!

skinem
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Postby skinem » Mon Dec 22, 2008 2:16 pm

Your'n is common among "country" folks around here in Middle Tennessee and northern Alabama.

I don't recall hearing it in the Pacific Northwest--certainly not by the natives of that place.

misterdoe
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Postby misterdoe » Tue Oct 20, 2009 3:27 pm

My Baltimore born-and-raised cousins used "your'n" all the time when we were kids. No "his'n," though. I know their mother (my father's sister) was born and raised in South Carolina, but I don't know just where their (step)father was from...

Stargzer
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Re: Your'n

Postby Stargzer » Thu Oct 22, 2009 2:23 pm

... The derivation seems perceptible enough: "your one" would be more logical than yours following the pattern of "this one" and "that one". That is an assumption though.
...
Origin:
1350–1400; ME, equiv. to your + -n, as in mine

...
I prefer the second derivation above because of the parallel structure it implies:

my -->mine
your--> yourn

Be careful how you use and pronounce it though, as in "What's mine is mine and what's yours is your'n."

:shock:

Note that this is different from "YORN," a label I've seen used in programming for a routine that asks for a Yes OR No answer from a user in a script.

(Historical note: during the Poor People's March On Washington, some of the locals often referred to Resurection City as Insurrection City and the Reflecting Pool as Lake Huron, pronounced with a silent "H." Those were different times ...)
Regards//Larry

"To preserve liberty, it is essential that the whole body of the people always possess arms, and be taught alike, especially when young, how to use them."
-- Attributed to Richard Henry Lee


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