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mathprof

Thanks for your post. Yes, I have heard "y'all" in the south and it sounds friendly and attractive. I didnt know about the use in the New Jersey area but I bet it is more pleasant than my friend's "youse" which she uses in her classroom. This cannot be right.

Grunger, MPR...

I'd considered 'Y'all' as a substitute for 'you' (plural, and confusing at times) and 'youse' (plural, but unmelodic at best, ugly at worst). The only problem was the usage I've encountered in America - 'y'all' was used even when addressing someone in the singular. I looked over my shoulder the first few times this happened to me - in coffee shops or small bookstores, say - expecting to see someone else. standing beside me. The pedant in me wasn't keen - surely 'you' is fine for one person, 'y'all' implies more than that?

Malone, indeed there is somewhat of a schism over here about whether y'all is strictly plural or not. For me, it is only plural. As you point out, there is no reason to deviate from "you" for the singular. I'm with you on this one.

malone

You would have enjoyed this in the Mail today. I didnt know they were still around.

Female domestic assistant (11)

Grunger

Is that just a straight, non-cryptic, clue? I have an answer that would fit. There was a sex/IT/SA clue in yesterday's Times Jumbo - I dashed past that one !

Grunger

I thought of WASHERWOMAN and LAUNDRYMAID (perhaps two words), but I bet there are plenty of other possibilities - that's the trouble with 'quick' clues.

Malone

I don't look at the Times Jumbo but in Friday's Times 27863, 14ac:

Miss Roman cutting short boring appeal (9)

we had an SA bookend.

I can't remember seeing 'boring' used as an inserting convention before.

Not to highjack the thread, but I have a question. Earlier grunger used the term "Scouse." I know that refers to Liverpool, but I had wondered if it was considered offensive. I presume by grunger's use that it is not, but I guess it is much more informal than "Liverpudlian."

I currently live in Oklahoma, and the term Okie is widely used, but it does have a history of being offensive. See "The Grapes of Wrath" for example.

A few years back I had a student from Liverpool. (Our soccer team recruits heavily in England.) He had a rather heavy accent - for example, for the word circle he would say "sercle." I commented that the rest of the class probably didn't understand his Liverpudlian accent; if I had said "Scouse accent" would that have been inappropriate? Would it be offensive to call someone you didn't know very well a Scouse?

I'm not from Liverpool, but I think they have a traditional stew (?) called "lobscouse", from which "scouse" derives.

Yes, I looked it up in Chambers.

Malone Paul

It turned out to be maidservant, which I got from crossers. Sounds a bit biblical.