Many years ago when I was a teaching assistant in graduate school, I thought I’d figured out when it was used.  At the time, I taught Linguistics 101 to undergraduates at the University of North Carolina. Most of the students were from North Carolina or other southern states, and at the end of every class, I would explain their homework assignment, saying something like “You need to turn it in on Monday.”

One day, a student in class came up after class, all upset. She asked why I was always picking on her when I gave out the homework assignment. Apparently, when I said “”You need to turn it in on Monday,” my eyes always fell on her and so she thought I was talking only to her. It turned out that you, for her,  was necessarily singular.  I explained that I meant it to refer to everyone. But, she asked, if I meant everyone, why didn’t I use y’all. Y’all, she explained was what one used to mean you-plural  “you” was only singular.

That was very different from my use of you in the North. What I concluded at the time was that in a Southern U.S. English Dialect circa 1985 in North Carolina, you always meant “you-singular”, and y’all always meant you-plural.

Fast forward 30 years. Chris and I stopped in a restaurant in North Carolina for lunch on our recent road trip from Florida to Maryland. Chris went in first while I parked the car, so we  entered the restaurant and encountered the host separately.  In a clear southern accent, the host said to each of us individually something like “Can I help y’all”. Y’all as a singular?!

Language change in action – or just my mis-analysis of the student’s use of y’all 30 years ago

Linguists, southerners, anyone want to comment on this? Y’all just let me know.

——-

P.S.  San Sebastian in Spain has a pretty extensive set of shopping streets, populated with high-end clothing stores and boutiques. One night when we were there in June a store was having a special celebration (either grand-opening or anniversary). There was a local “folk, country and blues” band (according to the poster) playing. This was Spain, and the local band was playing American folk and country; well, of course they were, the name of the band was “Howdy”, after all. Anyway, after looking them on the web, we discovered that they play only American songs, on banjo, ukelele, guitars (2), bass, violin and trombone. Here’s a clip on YouTube.; FWIW, here’s a link to their Facebook page. The banter in between songs was all in Spanish, though. It was a bit surreal to to be standing around a store in Spain hearing a group play “Oh, Suzanna” with the crowd clapping along.

However, the oddest moment was when one guy sitting in on the gig that night turned out to be an American. He triggered a somewhat spirited debate between the band members on the proper pronunciaation of the first word in the refrain of their final song,  Y’all Come.

I guess  you — er, y’all — just never know what you’ll run into when you travel.

Faces

First up, some “real” faces on a poster near a boat museum near the La Concha beach. We didn’t go into the museum, but I was intrigued by the poster and its depiction of the people who they think populate a busy harbor town:

Poster, San Sebastián/Donostia

FWIW, while we were in town we didn’t notice any mermaids, dancing guys with flags, or divers in old fashion diving suits, or any of the other unusual characters depicted on that sign. But then again, it wasn’t really prime tourist season yet.

The next “face” today  is one of those morphic ones that I often spot in inanimate objects. This time, it’s in a railing on a fancy balcony:

Man in the “moon”? (railing)

I don’t think the intent was to have a face there in that design, but FWIW, I actually see two faces: a profile in the inner circle, which itself becomes a mouth-nose type thing for the two “eyes” above it. Humor me –  you either see it or you don’t.   If you don’t, then it’s at least still an interesting railing.

Spaces

On my website I use my Spaces gallery as a place to present photos that don’t fit neatly into other categories. Often these photos will involve a reflection, which may or may not be in a puddle.

In San Sebastián, where it did rain periodically almost every day we were there, I didn’t find many picturesque puddles. But you only need to find one, right? Particularly when everything’s “All Lined Up” for the photo in the puddle.

I did play a little with the photo to create two different versions of it, as I  couldn’t decide if I liked the “sand” to be darker or lighter.  It’s not actually sand, it’s just the pavement, but I liked how it looked like sand. Anyway, see which one you prefer below:

All Lined Up: Version 1

All Lined Up: Version 2

So just a random set of  photos to round out this post, and, as it turns out, this week. I had hoped to have my blog posts for the rest of the week all lined up, as it were, today, but I didn’t have a chance to get them done.  As a routine medical test on Friday that requires lots of prep the day before (ugh!) will capture my attention for the rest of the week the blog will be a brief hiatus through Friday. Regular posts will resume on Monday – see you then!

Chris and I stayed in San Sebastián/Donostia for 5 days back in May, which was enough time to wander around much of the old town as well as to walk along many of its beaches.  As I mentioned last week, San Sebastián/Donostia is a city renowned for its beaches. In fact, according to the English translation in the tourist brochure that the hotel gave us, San Sebastián has the “second-best urban beach in Europe.” Second-best? Really? I don’t know why, but I found it funny that they are so proud of their second place status that they put that fact in the brochure. Perhaps the phrase reads better in Spanish.

And before you ask, no, I don’t know what’s first on the list.

Anyway, while we were in San Sebastián/Donostia, we wandered around every day, seeing local sights as well as the beaches.  We went to visit an interesting museum that had displays and information about the history of the area. Nearby, there was a large playground with a nice cafe favored by locals;  we vowed to visit it before we left town.

The day we made it back over to that area was a Sunday.  The playground was filled with families with children, and all  the kids were busy playing with some huge head-sized masks that clearly seemed to represent some specific story, but what it was we didn’t know. It seemed as though the masks could be rented for a small fee from a central table, and different kids played with different ones while we were there. Some of the masks even came with props appropriate to the character, including on where the character in a big black hat got to bop other kids with a ball on a stick. The kid in the photo below is practicing with that prop:

Children with masks, Donostia

In the next photo you can see another child in a different mask. The little boy to her left is running around with a “bull’s head” mounted on a wheeled contraption. This was also part of the stuff that could be rented from that table. Perhaps this kind of toy allows them practice their toreador skills at a young age? We were in Spain, after all.

Child and masks, Donostia

Anyway, as I said, on our earlier walks, we’d noticed a cafe nearby that always had  lots of locals hanging out outside. This Sunday afternoon was no different, with the adults both at the cafe as well as on the playground, watching their kids and interacting with each other. We got a seat and hung out there, too, enjoying the sights and sounds while sampling a local wine.

It wasn’t a big adventure, but another fun part of travel is getting the chance to spend a quiet afternoon absorbing some of the local atmosphere.  Quite a nice memory from one Sunday in Donostia.

Donostia Reflection, take at the cafe near the playground in Donostia

The colors of my life
Are bountiful and bold,
The purple glow of indigo,
The gleam of green and gold.
The splendor of the sunrise,
The dazzle of a flame,
The glory of a rainbow
I’d put ‘em all to shame …

… The colors of my life
Will leave a shining light
To show the way.
                              — from The Colors of My Life, lyrics by Michael Stewart

That’s a long-winded way of getting to today’s post. As I was reviewing more of my photos from San Sebastián last night, that song popped into my head, because I was really struck with all the different colors in the photos. A sample is below, where I offer everything from the “glow of indigo” to “the gleam of green and gold” and beyond. True, there’s no rainbow, and it’s a sunset not a sunrise.  Nevertheless,  I think you’ll agree that the colors in the photos below provide “a shining light to show the way” …  to scenes from San Sebastián.

Enjoy.

Moon over San Sebastián

Castle Road, San Sebastián

Silhouettes, San Sebastián

Sailing in San Sebastizean

Medley of Blues

Greens and Blues in the Bay, San Sebastián

Setting Sun, San Sebastián

Sundown, San Sebastián

Colors of Sunset, San Sebastián

As Will once pointed out,  San Sebastian is actually famous for its beaches. Its most famous one is La Concha, which is Spanish for mollusk shell.  It’s a huge, crescent shaped sandy stretch of beach next to the Bay of Concha:

Panoramic view of La Concha, San Sebastian

La Concha, San Sebastián

The tourist season hadn’t really kicked in when we were there at the end of May, even though during the day it was certainly hot enough to be going on the beach to go swimming. The beach is surrounded by a double-decker walk-way that has room underneath to walk around. One day while we were there an arts and crafts market was held on the lower level of the walkway. It was a bit odd to see an underground level beneath the walkway, but it was certainly nice to get out of the hot sun while looking at the market stalls.

Viewing La Concha from below

The walkway up above stretched along the length of the beach, and periodically you’d see street performers singing, playing an instrument, or perhaps doing a puppet show as in the following photo:

Buskers along La Concha’s walkway

Note that the puppets “look” like the Beatles; the marionettes seemed to play in sync with a recording of the musical group. It was pretty well done, actually.

Since we were staying just a block from this beach, we walked over each evening to go for a stroll and enjoy the view of the beach and water. Since mostly we did this at night, it’s seems fitting to end with another panoramic view of La Concha, this one at twilight. Enjoy.

Panoramic view of the Bay of La Concha at twilight

I will have more to write-up about the food there at some point, since the town is considered a focal point for foodies. I also took a fair number of photos while we were there, since it was on the coast, there were a lot of water photo ops to be had. But as usual I haven’t finished sorting through all the photos.

So in the meantime, I thought I’d at least share one of my favorite memories from our visit. At that time of year, sunset is fairly late in evening, and initially I thought there would be a chance to try to get a photo of sunset each day.  However, the weather didn’t always cooperate, with the clouds rolling in just when the sunset was about to happen most of the days were were there.

However, one evening the cloud cover wasn’t too heavy, and so we made it over to a vantage point near the beach just in time to catch a view of the sun setting over Donostia.

Enjoy.

Sunset over San Sebastian