Do American children still say “yessum”?

30 comments

1. Maybe in the deep south

2. Yes, some.

3. Ive never heard that.. even in the south..lol.

4. I would sometimes, but only facetiously.

   I am southern and I did hear it growing up, but not often.

5. I live in the south, so southern a police officer backhandedly threatened my black neighbor that she shouldn’t file a report on our other white neighbors because “they are all in the lodge together”. So when I say I’m in the south I’m *in the south*.

   I’ve never heard anyone say that phrase in earnest. I’ve heard adults say it as a joke that the person they said it to was being bossy, and maybe kids have said it in a mispronounced way, but that’s it.

6. This guy read to kill a mockingbird

7. I am 48 and have never heard anyone say that.

8. No-um

9. I only know that word from Old Yeller and To Kill a Mockingbird.

10. nope. maybe like at cotillion, or a historical re-enactment or something, but other than that I don’t think so.

    You will hear kids say “yes sir” and “yes ma’am” in the South though.

11. What?

12. Yes. I heard it yesterday.

13. Adult southerner here and I say it being funny only.

14. where I live they do

15. Never heard it in real life, only saw it in literature and I live in the south, but not the ‘deep’ south.

16. Consensus seems to be that it is still rarely used in small, specific locations but it is not in wide, general use (and never really was).

17. Did they ever?

18. At times in the South, at least in my family they do sometimes but it’s usually just the younger kids who do that. When they get a bit older we all graduated to, “Yes sir,” and “Yes ma’am.”

19. I have heard it but only ironically

20. They do not. I’ve only seen it in To Kill a Mockingbird and heard it in media depicting the old timey south.

    It’s definitely a dated phrase.

21. I’ve never heard anyone say Yessum in a non joking manner.

22. A bit. But i also have older parents and grew up with rura folks

23. After reading (I think) Twain, I started to say that a lot in middle school. Said it to a dude science teacher. He yelled at me cause he thought I meant it like “yes ma’am” which I didn’t cause I had no idea wtf I was doing

24. I’m 32 and I say it often. I don’t even know where I picked it up. ¯_(ツ)_/¯

25. When I lived in SC I worked with two older guys who said it. My grandfather also said it, but he was from Alabama and born 1917.

    If anyone under 50 says it nowadays I’d accuse them of leaning hard into an accent/dialect that no longer exists. People do that though, I guess it’s folksy, cute, etc. I don’t think a child would ever say it unless they were explicitly taught to.

    Now yes sir or ma’am, that still is common many places and I still say it frequently myself.

26. Absolutely in Alabama. The well mannered ones say Yes Ma’am pronounced like one would say to the queen and Yes sir. And the kids at my daughter’s college in Brimingham say yes ma’am and thank you to the workers. Very polite kids. Usually for people lder generation who used it in the public like if you work in a store , older family members or their friends parents or strangers. . My parents definitely had to say it to their parents (they were born in the 1930s) I think it’s slowly fading away but not extinct.

    I hear it in small town Texas too.

    Atlanta not as much, Austin no, maybe it’s just smaller towns and alabama.

    I woked in a nursing home and defnitely said ma’am? and Sir? instead of What?

    I do find that the older I get the more I get Ma’amed

27. only if they’re raised right

28. Yes. In the south. Source-i lived in NC for 15 years.

29. I live in the south and I remember kids saying that all the time growing up. I didn’t because I thought it sounded funny. Haven’t heard it in a long time though.

30. I live in the South. I’ve always said it. That and, “yessir.”