Yeah, yay, yah & ya

by Elysa Rice

in Education

I certainly would not consider myself the spelling expert but I often see yeah and yay misused so I thought I’d have a little education session.

  • Yeah - pronounced ye-uh as in yes
    "Hey Jen, are you going to with us to the mall."- girl a; "Yeah, I’ll go"- girl b
  • Yay – rhymes with and is a synomym of hooray. It’s used in cases of excitement.
    "Did I tell you I won an ipod?" – girl a; "No! Oh that is exciting. Yay!" – girl b
  • Yah – is also an expersion of agreement but there is no excitement.
    "Hey are you ready to go" – girl a; "yah" – girl b
  • Ya – means you
    "How are ya?"
  • Yea – is a very old-fashioned formal way of saying “yes,” used mainly in voting. It’s the opposite of—and rhymes with—“nay.”
    "All in favor say yea, all opposed nay."
  • and if that wasn’t confusing enough yay can also refer to height, as in "when I was yay big" [holding hand up]

Did you catch all that?

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About Elysa Rice

Blonde Computer Nerd. Texas Girl (Dallas to be exact). Community Manager for Bizzy. Social Media Club of Dallas Leadership. Lover of all things pink. Mac & Cheese fanatic. Apple Fangirl.

http://genpink.com

Elsewhere on the Web

@ genpink

has contributed 294 awesome posts to GenPink!

  • http://thepapertreehouse.blogspot.com Margie Blystone

    I Googled this and your site came up… I’m ALWAYS getting these wrong. So now I’m bookmarking this page for the next time I get confused.
    Thanks!
    :-)

  • jack the ripper

    Thank you I have a friend who constantly claims that yea- is the same as yay. and we always use it as an abbreviation for yeah.

  • http://www.wunderkraut.com/index.php/archives/2008/09/09/a-lecture-from-wunderkraut/ WunderKraut » Blog Archive » A Lecture From WunderKraut

    [...] found this site which had the best [...]

  • http://www.genpink.com/continuation-of-googlicious/ Continuation of Googlicious – GenPink

    [...] all opposed say yay – yeah that is my pet peeve. Check out my previous post if you want to know the different between yeah, yay, & yea. [...]

  • Meg

    http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,951355,00.html This Time article says it’s “Yeah or Nay”, not yea.

  • Melanie

    I hate when I see people use “yeah” when they really mean “yay”. Like, “I’m going to the beach today! Yeah!”! Why dont they understand that is just wrong…it doesnt even sound right! I am no grammer or spelling expert, but that seems so obvious to me.

  • Lisa

    I agree that “yay” and “yeah” are clearly different, but there are gray areas. I’m curious how old the person was who said (in Melanie’s post), “I’m going to the beach today! Yeah!” In the late 80′s, people also used “Yeah” (pronounced close to ye-uh as described above) as an exclamation of joy: think of the song “Oh, yeah!” in the movie “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.” To me, it would be okay to use “yeah” in that sentence if it’s really pronounced as “yeah” and not “yay.”

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=731926926 facebook-731926926

    English 101

  • frankchitown

    English 101

  • Jody

    Yeah, this is a good explanation. Yay, I'm glad I found this site!

  • Deanna

    Thanks, GENPINK, for clarifying these as I, too, have seen variations and had become totally confused as to which one is correct usage.

  • deanna

    I believe your grammer is correctly spelled, grammar. Sorry, just had to mention it. My husband is a fanatic on correct spelling and pronounciation, particularly…congratulations vs.
    congradulations. One hears so many people incorrectly spell and pronounce that word.

  • http://www.LetsEATalready.com Jack

    Yay! Someone who agrees with me…

  • markdarcy

    According to whom, exactly?

  • Christopherwbounds

    “Hey Jen, are you going to with us to the mall.”- girl a; “Yeah, I’ll go”- girl b

    I would not consider you to be an expert on grammar either.

  • http://www.moldremoval.com Mold Removal Tampa

    Yeah, this is a good explanation.

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