“Whatever you write of the South,” said our hostess at a dinner party in Virginia, “don’t make the mistake of representing any one from this paht of the country, white oh black, educated oh ignorant, as saying ‘you-all’ meaning one person only.”

When I remarked mildly that it seemed to me I had often seen the phrase so used in books, and heard it in plays, eight or ten southern ladies and gentlemen at the table pounced upon me, all at once.  “Yes!” they agreed, with a kind of polite violence, “books and plays by Yankees!”

“If,” one of the gentlemen explained, “you write to a friend who has a family, and say, according to the northern practice, ’I hope to see you when you come to my town,’ you write something which is really ambiguous, since the word ‘you’ may refer only to your friend, or may refer also to his family.  Our southern ‘you-all’ makes it explicit.”

I told him that in the North we also used the word “all” in connection with “you,” though we accented the two evenly, and did not compound them, but he seemed to believe that “you” followed by “all” belonged exclusively to the South.

The argument continued almost constantly throughout the meal.  Not until coffee was served did the subject seem to be exhausted.  But it was not, for after pouring a demi-tasse our hostess lifted a lump of sugar in the tongs, and looking me directly in the eye inquired:  “Do you-all take sugah?”

Undoubtedly it would have been wiser, and politer, to let this pass, but the discussion had filled me with curiosity, not only because of my interest in the localism, but also because of the amazing intensity with which it had been discussed.

“But,” I exclaimed, “you just said ‘you-all,’ apparently addressing me.  Didn’t you use it in the singular?”

No sooner had I spoken than I was sorry.  Every one looked disconcerted.  There was silence for a moment.  I was very much ashamed.

“Oh, no,” she said at last.  “When I said ‘you-all’ I meant you and Mr. Morgan.” (She pronounced it “Moh-gan,” with a lovely drawl.) As she made this statement, she blushed, poor lady!

Being to blame for her discomfiture, I could not bear to see her blush, and looked away, but only to catch the eye of my companion, and to read in its evil gleam the thought:  “Of course they use it in the singular.  But aren’t you ashamed of having tripped up such a pretty creature on a point of dialect?”

Though my interest in the southern idiom had caused me to forget about the sugar, my hostess had not forgotten.

“Well,” she said, still balancing the lump above the cup, and continuing gamely to put the question in the same form, and to me:  “Do you-all take sugah, oh not?”

I had no idea how my companion took his coffee, but it seemed to me that tardy politeness now demanded that I tacitly—­or at least demi-tacitly—­accede to the alleged plural intent of the question.  Therefore, I replied:  “Mr. Morgan takes two lumps.  I don’t take any, thanks.”