a
Three days later, Rarity trotted gaily towards the large front entrance to Twilight Sparkle's Palace, balancing a slender box on her back. She hummed to herself, tossing her mane in the crisp morning air of Ponyville. At last, she reached the front stoop, shuffling to a stop with a ladylike sigh. With gentle telekinesis, she rang the dangling bell at the entrance, then stepped back with a patient smile.
Not long after, a dragon whelp opened the door, gazing out with haggard scales and bloodshot eyes. “Mrmmmfff... Rarityyy...?” Spike stifled a yawn.
“Why, good morning to you, Spikey Wikey!” Rarity grinned elegantly. “Perchance, would Twilight be awake? I have something fabulous to give the Princess.”
“Grrfff...” Spike folded his arms and walked out the Palace—and straight past the unicorn. “Go and see for yourself. And good luck.”
“What... why...” Rarity blinked, lifting a dainty forelimb as she glanced at the retreating dragon. “...good luck with what, Spike? What ever do you mean?”
“Sugarcube Corner. I need sugar. A pick me up.” And Spike continued his exhausted, serpentine waddle towards the pastel bakery in question.
“Hmmmm...” Rarity stared off into space. Eventually, she shrugged it off, and made her way inside the Palace's foyer. “Oh hellooooooooooo...” The mare was kind enough to shut the front door behind her with magic. “Twilight, darling? It's your dear friend, Rarity. I do hope I am not intrudiiiiiiiiing!”
The unicorn didn't have to wander for long. She was less than ten meters into the heart of the Palace when she sensed a lavender aura emanating from an adjacent room. Weighed forward by a proud smile, she spun about and shuffled ecstatically into the chamber.
“Twilight! Look! It's the dress you asked me to touch up for you!” Rarity undid the ribbon and levitated a shiny blue gown out into the open. “Taa-daaaa! Ee-hee-hee!” She grinned wide, bubbling with glee as she twirled the glittery item around in her magic field. “Isn't it just divine? I do hope you don't mind the excessive accents along the skirt's hem. After all, a girl can never have too much petti and lace. Ahem.” She graced the walls of the room with a coy smile. “Somepony is going to get that.” But just then, she blinked. “... … ...errrm... Twilight?”
“Shhh! Just a minute, Rarity,” hissed a very frazzled, very anxious Twilight. The Princess had been reduced to a jittery sack of loose limbs, plopped down in the center of a complex double-helix of stacked books, dictionaries, thesauri, and anthropological textbooks. She dabbed a floating quill pen into the last of six lined-up inkwells—the only inkwell that hadn't dried up, and she proceeded to sketch several complex notes and syntactical diagrams across a sheet of paper lingering on the top of a grotesquely tall pile of identically scribbled sheets. “I almost have this finished.”
“Erm... almost have what finished, darling?” With gentle finesse, Rarity tucked the extravagant dress back into her box and laid it at the floor at the entrance to the cluttered room. “This... looks like quite the undertaking.” She gasped, almost tripping over a veritable bastion made out of thick encyclopedias—both old and new. “My word! Just how long have you been working on this... whatever this is?”
“Mrmmmm...” Twilight blinked blearily into the ethereal purple torchlight of her study. “Remind me. How many times does a rooster crow each day?”
“Erm... once, darling.”
“Ah. Three. Three days, then.”
“Three days?!” Rarity leaned back, aghast. “Celestia's bells, Twilight! I do certainly hope you are working on a new Amendment for the Equestrian Constitution!”
“Nope!” Twilight bore a twitching grin. “This is something even better! It's an essay on the errors of regional colloquialism, specifically rural dialects of Equestrian Basic situated within the Central Plains.”
“Ooooh! A discourse of modern linguistics! How quaint!” Rarity smiled. “I'm certain Princess Celestia will be absolutely pleased—”
“Nope.” Twilight shook her head, continuing to write and scribble between regimental dabs into the ink well. “This is not meant for Princess Celestia's eyes.”
“Oh.” Rarity blinked. “Well, then, I'm certain Princess Luna can find the time to read the product of your hard work—”
“I'm not writing it to Luna either.”
“Erm...” Rarity gulped. “Then... uhhm... I'm certain that your good friend Princess Cadance will be tickled pink! Or pinker, as t'were.”
“Uh uh.” Twilight dotted the last sentence on the last page and began shuffling the massive wad of sheets into a tight, geometric solid. “I didn't have any of the other Princesses in mind when I started writing this essay. After all, they're hardly a suitable audience. Besides, it would be rather redundant, given their grammatical predilections.”
“Oh... uhm...”
“No, this essay is meant for a pony much... much closer to my heart.”
“I see.” Rarity nodded. “Well, if you so desire, Twilight, I would be more than honored to give this essay you've made a fine perusal—”
“And that's a very generous offer, Rarity, but I didn't write this for you.” The Princess looked up. “I made this for Applejack to read.”
At that precise moment, the entire room exploded with cacophonous gunshot. It took a few labored breaths between both mares for them to realize that it was the sound of Rarity's impulsive snort. “HAH! Applejack?! Our Applejack? Oh, Twilight darling, that is most exceedingly rich!”
“No, Rarity,” Twilight said, seriously, with a serious face. “I'm serious.”
“Applejack?” Rarity's arched eyebrow nearly scraped the ceiling. “Our Applejack? The same mare who sees a thickly-bound residential listing and fancies it a fine aid in allowing her darling little Apple Bloom to sit at the family dinner table?”
“Erm... yes.” Twilight blinked. “Why, is there a problem with that?”
“Twilight, exactly how many pages is this... research paper?”
“Uhhhh...” Twilight waved the brick-like clump in front of her eyes. She glanced back at Rarity. “About three hundred and seventy-two pages short. Why?”
“Three hundred and seventy-two pages?!” Rarity grimaced visibly. “Good Goddess, Twilight! Haven't you ever heard of proofreading?”
“Absolutely!” Twilight bore a proud smile that burst through her insomniac wrinkles. “What else do you think I've been doing over the past thirty-six hours?”
“Twilight, I'm certain you have divine intentions here, but... but...” Rarity bit on the edge of her fetlock, trembling slightly at the sight of the ink-thick sheets. “...Applejack?! She's... she's...”
“What?”
“Oh dear...” Rarity fanned herself. “How do I put this without sounding obtuse?” She stared into empty space for a few seconds, then spun towards Twilight with a smile. “She's obtuse!”
“Eh?” Twilight blinked.
“Erm... I-I mean grammatically!” Rarity squeaked. “A good read simply doesn't have the same effect on Applejack as it does on you or me, darling! She'd take one look at this and see a doorstop for keeping her barn open, not a provocative source of educational material!”
“In this case, I beg to differ!” Twilight said, tapping the cover page of the massive manuscript. “Once I convince her of how important this essay is, believe me, Applejack will want nothing more than to read each page from start to finish! Especially when she realizes how much it pertains to her!”
“Erm... in what way does a huge treatise on Equestrian Basic colloquialisms pertain to our Applejack?”
“In what way?!?” Twilight's gawking muzzle hung so heavily that her whole body tilted incredulously towards Rarity. “Rarity, are you serious?!” Her brow spasmed, each eye struggling against the bloodshot blight consuming them with each twitching millisecond. “In. What. Way? Do I wear a huge pink diaper?!”
“Erm...” Rarity fidgeted. “Not at this precise second...”
“Then you aren't fever dreaming this moment, now, are you?” Twilight pointed at herself, at Rarity, and then at herself again. “You can certifiably agree that this is real life?”
“I... shall say 'yes' here and nod my head, darling.”
“Rarity, you were there at the Royal Luncheon! You heard it! You heard everything!”
“Heard what, darling?” Rarity squinted. “Wait... does this have anything to do with our splendid meeting with the most esteemed Duke Autumn Breeze of Stone Trot Valley?”
“Yes, Rarity! Yes!” Twilight exhaled, starting to pace in frantic, lavender circles. “This has everything to do with our meeting with the Duke of Stone Trot Valley! But, even more specifically, Applejack's behavior in front of the Duke of Stone Trot Valley!”
“Applejack?!” Rarity leaned back, her muzzle wrenched with confusion. “Was... was there something truly amiss? I was there, Twilight. In my estimation, Applejack was every bit a polite lady! An absolute paragon of country manners if there ever was one!”
“Yes, Rarity, Applejack was polite. Applejack was well-mannered. Applejack was honorable and respectful.”
“Then what ever is the problem, dear?”
“Didn't you hear Applejack, Rarity? I mean... when she spoke to our guest?!”
The unicorn could only draw a blank.
Twilight slid over, practically hissing: “She referred to Duke Autumn Breeze in the singular... using a plural second-person pronoun with a contraction!”
Rarity's ears twitched. She kept leaning her head away from Twilight's flaring nostrils. “Then... this... all of this is about our dear Applejack's habitual utilization of country slang?”
“Rarity, that's not the point!!” Twilight galloped across the room, levitated a thick dictionary out of the middle of a leaning stack, and flung it open before the other mare. A bookmark lingered towards the very back of the massive tome, highlighting two mangled words and an apostrophe. “We all know that Applejack was born and raised on a farm. Apple buckers favor simplicity over grammatical eloquence. That's all well and good, but even Applejack and every pony in her family are bound by a specific set of rules. And those rules dictate that the words that originally make up 'y'all'—those of course being 'you' and 'all'—dictate an address of a second person in the plural state!”
Thap! Twilight slapped the floating dictionary shut, her muzzle gaping wide open in a look of abject terror and disgust.
“Duke Autumn Breeze of Stone Trot Valley is not more than one person! He's a gazelle! One gazelle! Singular!” Twilight shook her frozen grimace. “Applejack did not use a singular pronoun to address our singular diplomatic guest! She used a pluralized expression! 'Y'all!' Applejack broke grammar right in the face of the same dignitary with whom we broke bread! And it was here in my Palace with none other than the chosen heir to the royal crest of Stone Trot Valley!”
“Twilight... Twilight... Twilight...” Rarity sighed, bearing a tired smile. “Don't you think that—as is often the case—you are overreacting here?”
“No, Rarity, I am not!” Frowning, Twilight trotted vicious circles around each leaning tower of books, books, books. “I've spent the last three days and four nights scouring every book, every paper, every written pamphlet on grammar that exists in print between here and Canterlot! I've found over fifty sources from Equestria's leading experts in the fields of linguistics and grammatical morphology! Every scholar, Rarity—Every scholar supports me in the persuasive argument I am making!”
“Erm...” Rarity nervously waved a hoof. “Which, I'm guessing, is the same point being made in your paper—”
“—that Applejack's flagrant use of 'y'all' in addressing a single pony is wrong! Every written document on the colloquialism from the collective body of Equestria's language experts confirm that it is fundamentally, categorically, undeniably wrong! And every pony who thinks otherwise and uses the second person address in the singular instead is wrong and should know how wrong they are!”
Rarity giggled... then giggled some more.
This only made Twilight huff until her cheeks expanded twice their size. “Rarity... this isn't funny!”
“Isn't it though?” Rarity smoothed her mane back. “So much ado about nothing?”
“It's not nothing when it comes to treating royal dignitaries here at the Palace!”
“Actually, Twilight, I was... erm... meaning to emphasize the classical ironic redundancy of the phrase 'much ado about—'”
“What if next time we have a griffon ambassador show up for a luncheon?!” Twilight's voice cracked. “Or a wyvern?! Or a member of some other race with a similarly high blood pressure?! Who knows how they might react to a spontaneous grammatical slip-up?!” Twilight blanched. “Do you... do you remember the yaks, Rarity?”
The unicorn's coat had already turned three paler shades of white. “Please, darling, whatever you do, do not bring up the yaks.”
“Yes, well, Duke Autumn Breeze fumbled for words over the course of ten seconds! All because of how Applejack talked to him! Did you even notice that?” Twilight gulped so hard her throat made a tiny squeaking noise. “That's ten seconds during which a dignitary as hardcore as the yaks could be tearing apart this Palace in utter frustration!”
“Alright, darling. Two things.” Rarity sat down before the Princess, waving a hoof. “Number one... I do believe you're overreacting just a smidgen.”
“I wasn't imagining things!” Twilight chirped with a smug grin. “Applejack threw the Duke off with her poorly chosen slang!”
“And number two...” Rarity smiled, shaking her head. “So what if Applejack made an error? It's hardly reason to inundate her with an insultingly long grammatical treatise!”
“Is it insulting to want all of my friends to be on their best behavior as representatives of Harmony?” Twilight gaped. “I didn't become the Princess of Friendship all on my own, Rarity. Each and every one of you are equal representatives in this matter!”
“Well, I suppose I can understand that, but does it necessitate your obsessive attention? I mean, honestly, Twilight... how often has Applejack referred to singular ponies as 'y'all?'”
Twilight merely glared at the fashionista. She summoned a deep breath and opened her mouth.
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*beats head against the door to the TARDIS repeatedly*
Dammit Twilight...
Twilight's adorably disastrous in this.
...I'm kind of curious as to what brought about that particular response...
"It's called 'pluralis majestatis', sugarcube. Ah was bein' polite. Really, Twilight, y'all a princess. Y'all should know 'bout this."
I... I think I got a migraine just by reading their yelling.
I am dead f-ing serious.
6182414 this post made me al giggly and fuzzy on the inside.
BWAHAHAHA!!!
As a hardcore texan
I probably use y'all at least ten times a day.
and never once does breaking grammar in that way bother me.
fur de liebe de grammatik!
Grammar not perfect! Yakks smash!
...really? that's what this fic's about?
this killed me
Heeheeeheee, this is perfection, ahahahaa.
As a country brosef as myself, I use y'all a lotta times, with all kind of people, hehe eue
Twilight needs to calm down a smidgen.
Nice.
You don't ask something like that from Twilight in the middle of an obsessive overreaction, Rarity! You just... don't!
6183158
Typesetting not perfect. Yakks smash!
Twilight is best Grammar Nazi.
Oh, Twilight, never change.
“Please, darling, whatever you do, do not bring up the yaks.”
Hehehehe...
Silly Twilight. Y'all is singular. All y'all is plural. (I'm going to duck into my grammar-proof bunker now to avoid all the return fire)
is this...nahhh. it couldn't be. but...is it..........?
Well, Twily's learning the zeroth lesson again.
Right, as evidenced by the pile of books, three days of non-sleep and a enough paper to make a doorstopper over a single grammar incorrect word.
And here I thought internet grammar Nazis were bad...Twilight's takin' it to a WHOLE 'nother level!
Well now twi y'all just need to calm down now. The usage of "y'all" is a bit like the manehatten "youse", used both when addressing an individual and a group. Understand now sug?
I completely agree with Twilight. All the incorrect uses of y'all in FiMfiction, together with all the incorrect uses of Luna's Middle English... they drive me up the wall.
At least with Middle English y'all have an excuse. But the expression y'all? How hard is that to use right?
6211714 well, apparently Applejack finds it really hard, she's being using it wrong the whole episode of 'Look Before You Sleep"
So the Fimfiction writers are not really using it wrong, as Applejack is doing it wrong, so they actually doing it wrong, because Applejack is doing it wrong! So they are doing it right.
It's in character.
...You grammatically-correct turd! You somehow knew how to make fun of me over this, didn't you?
6276857 …
Okay.
That was definitely the wrong question...poor Rarity.
This whole time I was expecting the plural to be a political faux-pas rather than just ungrammatical. Like, implying the Duke had royal ambitions or something.
But what about "y'all'er", a double contraction used in speech but not in text.
Y'all need to calm down, Twilight.
Why would she take books from Sunset's world?
This is actually a serious debate in academia, about descriptive versus prescriptive grammar rules. Twilight is adhering to a prescriptive mindset, which means that these rules are things that a few experts agree on, and thus they tell everyone else what the correct way to speak and write is. This contrasts with descriptive philosophy, Which takes into account that the purpose of language is communication, and that words get their meaning from how we use them, and thus determines rules by codifying how people use language. Descriptive rules seek to describe how people actually talk, like how we discover the rules that govern how the world works in science, whereas prescriptive rules seek to dictate to people what they should or shouldn't do.
I have read a number of compelling essays that point out how prescriptive grammar rules act as a classist barrier by making it harder for people from rural, urban, and foreign backgrounds to succeed in academia, because it forces people with other dialects to conform to the way wealthy and middle class native speakers of a language talk naturally. I'm sure Twilight would find them fascinating.