When you call a group of people "you all" do you capitalize either the Y or the Y and A?

Question

I'm calling my family "you all" in a thank you letter. Please help me out here, nothing I type seems right here. Thanks for you help.

Answer 1

its y'all.  no caps.  

Answer 2

Neither gets capitalized, unless you start a sentence with "you all", in which case the "y" must be capitalized.

ex:  You all are wonderful, and I appreciate your kindness.

ex:  I think you all are wonderful, and I appreciate your kindness.  

Answer 3

Don't use it at all.  It makes you sound like a hick.

Answer 4

The words "you" and "all" are only ever capitalised at the start of a sentence.

Don't use "you all" in formal writing - it's a colloquial form of the pronoun "you". The correct way to refer to a group of people is "all of you" or just simply "you" in the plural sense. You might be able to get away with it as the object in a sentence such as "David sends his thanks go to you all." but I would avoid it as it sounds awkward.

Y'all is also colloquial English - not standard English.

Answer 5

Neither, unless "you" is the first word of a sentence.

Ex:

I'd like to thank you all  .....

You all were so helpful .....

If you're thinking of capitalizing because of it being a group, that would be a no as well.  It would be like addressing a group of football players, and even though you address them as one group, you wouldn't capitalize the words football players.

Hope that helps.