by YeeForRyRo June 3, 2018

by TheenD June 12, 2006

The words yea and yay are homophones, meaning they are pronounced the same. Yea is a somewhat specialized word (“yes—used in oral voting”) most often used in a spoken context, so I would expect that many people would not realize there are two spellings for two different meanings.
Using the spelling yay for yea is therefore an eggcorn. Here's a discussion of it at the Eggcorn Database forum.
There were no examples of yay being used for yea at the Corpus of Contemporary American English, so it doesn't seem to be an emerging usage that is getting into the kinds of edited texts used to populate that corpus. On the other hand, there are plenty of Google results, including some on major, presumably professionally-edited sites, like ABC News and New York Magazine. Interestingly, a large portion of the top Google results were related to fashion.
How embarrassing for them: anyone who knows that there are two spellings for the two words would instantly identify yay for yea as an error.
Even the normally quite liberal and descriptivist Merriam-Webster dictionary has no entry at all for ‘yay’. Only Collins English Dictionary has an entry for yay, and it’s only for the exclamatory sense.
So, yes, it does appear that this substitution is an emerging usage, but no authorities at all countenance it just yet, and given that there is an unimpeachable substitute, I don’t recommend that anyone use it.
Using the spelling yay for yea is therefore an eggcorn. Here's a discussion of it at the Eggcorn Database forum.
There were no examples of yay being used for yea at the Corpus of Contemporary American English, so it doesn't seem to be an emerging usage that is getting into the kinds of edited texts used to populate that corpus. On the other hand, there are plenty of Google results, including some on major, presumably professionally-edited sites, like ABC News and New York Magazine. Interestingly, a large portion of the top Google results were related to fashion.
How embarrassing for them: anyone who knows that there are two spellings for the two words would instantly identify yay for yea as an error.
Even the normally quite liberal and descriptivist Merriam-Webster dictionary has no entry at all for ‘yay’. Only Collins English Dictionary has an entry for yay, and it’s only for the exclamatory sense.
So, yes, it does appear that this substitution is an emerging usage, but no authorities at all countenance it just yet, and given that there is an unimpeachable substitute, I don’t recommend that anyone use it.
"Yea" as in "yea or nay" is the correct spelling of the word most people type "yay" not "yay or nay"
by Anonymous19831983 December 9, 2016

by DKLONE July 31, 2007

Da krunkest flyest illest place to be OaKtOwN,HaYsTaCk,San Jo and everywhere in between. The Best Area to be in.Home of da Playas,Pimps,Ballas,Shot callas the Area where they pop them collas. Yall should know by now. If you don't know know you know. Yay Area or no Area 510 408 and everywhere else. Yay Area still holdin it down.
p1:Yo,why is we so weak?
p2:Cause we dont live in the Yay Area.
p1:But we live in New York
p2:exactly dogg we weak as fuck
p1:I need to get outta here
p2:fo sho ma niqqa we need to move to krunkest flyest illest place around
p1:you mean,Houston Texas?
p2:Niqqa ,no wonder you aint got a life and your weak as fuck. We need to Move out to Da Yay Area.
p1:Life seems to make sence now.
*5 weeks lata*
p1:fa sho dogg dis is the krunkest place on earth
p2:fa sho ma niqqa
p1 & p2: Thank you Yay ARea for makin us into what we are now, fly and krunk ass fuck and the Yay out here is da best. We love you Yay Area.
p2:Cause we dont live in the Yay Area.
p1:But we live in New York
p2:exactly dogg we weak as fuck
p1:I need to get outta here
p2:fo sho ma niqqa we need to move to krunkest flyest illest place around
p1:you mean,Houston Texas?
p2:Niqqa ,no wonder you aint got a life and your weak as fuck. We need to Move out to Da Yay Area.
p1:Life seems to make sence now.
*5 weeks lata*
p1:fa sho dogg dis is the krunkest place on earth
p2:fa sho ma niqqa
p1 & p2: Thank you Yay ARea for makin us into what we are now, fly and krunk ass fuck and the Yay out here is da best. We love you Yay Area.
by Michelle da flyest mami a life ~*510*~ April 17, 2004

by aluua July 29, 2020

A phrase ofen used my Afroman in songs such as Palmdale and Let's get Drunk Tonight. Means to sell crack cocaine.
by biggizzle May 12, 2009
