"Y'all come back now, hear?"

I remember hearing that phrase at the end of every episode of The Beverly Hillbillies. Jed and Granny and the rest of them hill folk spoke their hillbilly-speak and we just all thought it was so cute to be so hick. I wonder what folks from the south thought - like were they appalled that the rest of the country would think ALL southerners were that uneducated and unsophisticated. (or did they shrug and say, "I don't see what the big deal is?")

They never make it clear where the family came from, just some back hills in Missouri or Arkansas. They reference a lot of towns in Missouri, and that is where the producer is from. Lest you think I'm some Clampettphile, here is where I found all that out, courtesy of Wikipedia.

Beverly Hillbillies

It's the word Y'ALL that led me to thinking about the Clampetts and all them backwoods, illiterate hicks. The word just SOUNDS like all that to people who don't live in the south. But when we moved to Florida, it was the first thing we absorbed, because one hears it EVERYWHERE. You can't help but start saying it. It is convenient, your mouth has less to do... and for that matter, your brain has less to compose.

Instead of "How are all of you and your family doing?" you can simply ask "How're y'all today?" I've even heard, "How's y'all's dog?" which seemed an improper use. But hey, it got the point across quickly. And that's what language should do, I suppose.

So that leads to my TRUE original thought in all of this: Is it Ya'll or Y'all? I thought it HAD to only be y'all and was being misspelled the second way. Then I read this: Y'all or Ya'll

and had to rethink my initial conclusion. I'm thinking now that both spellings are correct. And since I no longer live in the south, I'll leave it to my friends to offer up opinions.

Which makes me wonder, in Texas do they say, "Adios, y'all?"