So, we need to decide on a spelling.
Is it ‘yous’ or ‘youse’?
PS And don’t be smart – it isn’t ‘use’.
32 Responses to “Meanwhile, at the desk of the woman who is always complaining there isn’t enough time…”
The story so far
I'm from Adelaide, but I'm living in Abu Dhabi right now. One day, I saw a gold leaf four wheel drive. It made me cry.
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My first novel, Black Dust Dancing, was published by Wakefield Press in March. It looks like this:
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My first novel, Black Dust Dancing, was published by Wakefield Press in March. It looks like this:
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adelaide from adelaide 
According to frequent user Mario Fenech, it’s “youse”.
I vote for “yous”.
I always want to rhyme “youse” with “mouse”. Besides, adding an “s” is the standard way of pluralising a word in English.
Sorry, a correction: “I love youse all” was the catchprase and autobiography-title of boxer Jeff Fenech, not footballer Mario.
youse.
also :
wuss.
bogan.
arvo.
whacker.
Can’t think of any more.
Ah…thank you for that correction, Liam. I was a bit confused, though coming from a state where we don’t have much to do with that code I was happy to take your word for it.
Your point is a good one, Deborah. This will not be an easy, will it?
whacker!
my favourite word of all time!!
Definitely youse. Even according to the Macquarie ABC Dictionary, although it does list yous as an alternative spelling.
I vote ‘yous’
I’m typing this very quetly, because I locked the door of my office to eat lunch & pretend I’m not here. People knock then wait a bit then go away.
That fact you’re even posing the question hurts me more than I can express.
It’s definitely not yous. I don’t know how you could pronounce yous without a voiceless fricative s, rhyming with ‘caboose’. You need a z to show that it’s a voiced youse, rhyming with ‘lose’, ‘booze’ and ‘crews’.
A third option: youx?
I just think the extra ‘e’ on the end is a bit too fancy
“I don’t know how you could pronounce yous without a voiceless fricative s, rhyming with ‘caboose’.”
I do: you could pronounce it (further to Liam’s lovely suggestion of “youx”) as though it were the formal ‘you’ in French, with which it is an eye-rhyme: vous.
In which case it would be pronounced “you”.
Or if you spelt it ‘yeux’ then it would be eyes. Or Ise. To go with Youse.
I’m sorry that isn’t very helpful.
“I don’t know how you could pronounce yous without a voiceless fricative s, rhyming with ‘caboose’.”
I do: you could pronounce it (further to Liam’s lovely suggestion of “youx”) as though it were the formal ‘you’ in French, with which it is an eye-rhyme: vous.
In which case it would be pronounced “you”.
Or if you spelt it ‘yeux’ then it would be eyes. Or Ise. To go with Youse.
I’m sorry that isn’t very helpful.
yooze
Like your work, fifi, although I am now finding it hard to go past youx.
SQ – how funny is that? That people might use the dictionary to look up youse. Like, I’m happy to be completely incorrect, grammatically speaking, but I’d hate to be spelling it wrong.
“In which case it would be pronounced ‘you'”…are you trying to make a point, PC? It’s also pretty funny.
ps Drew, harden up, mate.
I love that you asked this question! I can’t decide which one I prefer – I like the standardisation aspects of ‘yous’ but I know that all the times I’ve seen it in print it’s been ‘youse’… It’s not an expression I use, but I lament its absence in regular speech…
While I see Liam’s point, it is without an E by me.
youse
definitely!
Another vote for youse
Absoloutely youse.
Jeff Fenech made it famous and he spells it youse.
youse
My blog has exploded, can I come and hang out here? *sits on couch, pats beagle, notices beagle smells of pigeon, surreptitiously wipes fingers on trousers*
Youse.
Rhymes with Toulouse.
My favourite expletive: “Ya prawn!”
You don’t hear that any more
You are welcome here as long as is needed, Helen. Would you like to fold towels or sort socks?
Let me know if you need to make guest posts. It would be my honour to host you.
Whist I would defer to Suse as I view her as a linguist, I should point out that in my neck of the woods the word originated in Brooklyn.
And though I adore Suse I would hesitate to correct New Yawkers.
Ah, see, now we have the difference of dialect. The Brooklyn ‘yous’ (and one can hear a certain American actor in one’s head as one reads it) and the bogan Aussie elongated ‘youse’ (viz Jeff Fenech).
Fascinating stuff. I wonder what Melvyn Bragg would say.
Oh bless and thank you TC. My blog came back, the very next day, they thought it was a goner but…
Luckily, because bugger me if I could fix it myself.
Sometimes ignoring a problem and going “la la la la” saves you a lot of angst.
I’m laet .. but I always use ‘youse’.
And i’m always right.
*ahem*
err… ‘late’ … not laet.
So i’m not always right.
Screw youse all !
yous are all fucken kidden, right?
If yous is written “youse” how do you say “grouse”?
Zoe, if you are looking for consistency, you are in the wrong language.
Exhibit A: cough, plough. But I’m sure your mother taught you that much.
Oh, and h&b – that’s doesn’t mean you were wrong. That just means you made a mistake. Biiiig difference.