Confession: it’s 9:04 p.m. on a Wednesday night and, now that I have Avi in bed (tip: never give a child sugar before bedtime), I’m also already in bed, likely to fall asleep whilst typing.  I must be living in the wrong decade of my life because, hello, aren’t your twenties supposed to be when you stay up all hours of the night?  None of that for this girl; the earlier in bed the better –

because I like mornings best.

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It’s a good thing that I feel that way about mornings since, tomorrow at 7:45 a.m., I will find myself in a classroom for my first day of Advanced Grammar.  If you’ll remember, I started working on another degree last semester because I receive certain educational benefits that let me take certain courses for free or at a 50% discount.  Out of the classes I needed to take for that degree, none worked with my work / Avi schedule for this semester so I was classless.

But then I decided to look and see if there might be any other classes I’d want to take just for fun that would work with my schedule since I was able to take a couple of undergrad courses for free this semester.  I realize that, to most people, that probably sounds insane.  Why, after having finished two degrees, would I want to stay in school for “fun?” People think I’m weird; I get that.

But the way I see it, I have the opportunity to — each semester! — take two free undergrad courses so why wouldn’t I use that benefit to my good, even if those classes can’t go towards a third degree?  So, I looked through the course schedule and found two classes that I thought might do me some good: Advanced Grammar and Methods of Bible Study.

Allow me to recap this entire post for you: I’m a glutton for punishment who plans to beat herself with a dictionary and concordance at 7:45 IN THE MORNING.  However, on the bright side, the next time someone asks me to explain a method of Bible study to them, I will hopefully be able to do it with correct ADVANCED grammar which, really, is a skill that will take me far in life.

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I’m guessing that, when we go around the classroom giving our introductions tomorrow morning, that it might be in my best interest to not start off with “Hey, y’all!” unless I want to really impress them by saying “Hey, ya’ll!”  Please, allow me to explain:

you + all = y’all (one syllable)   |   you + all = ya’ll (two syllables)

Now, if you’re ever in a situation where you don’t know which is correct, you can ask yourself a few simple questions and instantly know which pronunciation belongs to you:

1. Do I occasionally eat chicken for dinner?

You, my friend, are a one-syllable y’all.

2. Do I raise chickens in my backyard before eating them for dinner?

Easy: you need to employ the use of the two-syllable ya’ll.

3. If you answered yes to the first question about occasionally eating chicken, you must then ask yourself this: did I purchase said chicken from a grocery store called the Piggly Wiggly?

If the answer is yes, you have been automatically moved into the two-syllable group whether you like it or not.  Everybody knows that shopping at the Piggly Wiggly necessitates a two-syllable ya’ll.