Late that night as we were returning to our hotel, my companion said to me somewhat tartly:  “In case such a thing comes up again, I wish you would remember that sugar in my coffee makes me ill.”

“Well, why didn’t you say so?”

“Because,” he returned, “I thought that you-all ought to do the answering.  It seemed best for me-all to keep quiet and try to look plural under the singular conditions.”

* * * * *

No single thing I ever wrote has brought to me so many letters, nor letters so uniform in sentiment (albeit widely different in expression), as the foregoing, seemingly unimportant tale, printed originally in “Collier’s Weekly.”

Some one has pointed out that various communities have “fighting words,” and as the letters poured in I began to realize that in discussing “you-all” I had inadvertently hit upon a term which aroused the ire of the South—­or rather, that I had aroused ire by implying that the expression is sometimes used in the singular—­the Solid South to the contrary notwithstanding.

Never, upon any subject, have I known people to agree as my southern correspondents did on this.  The unanimity of their dissent was an impressive thing.  So was the violence some of them displayed.

For a time, indeed, the heat with which they wrote, obscured the issue.  That is to say, most of them instead of explaining merely denied, and added comments, more or less unflattering, concerning me.

Wrote a lady from Lexington, Kentucky: 

     I have lived in Kentucky all of my life, and have never yet heard
     “you-all” used in the singular, not even among the negroes.  My
     grandparents and friends say they have never heard it, either.

It was needless for you to tell your Virginia hostess that “you-all” (meaning you and your friend) were Yankees.  The fact that you criticized her language proved it.  Southern people pride themselves on their tact, and no doubt, at the time, she was struggling to conceal a smile because of some of your own localisms.

Many of the letters were more severe than this one, and most of them made the point that I had been impolite to my hostess, and that, in all probability, when she looked at me and asked, “Do you-all take sugah?” she was playing a joke upon me, apropos the discussion which had preceded the question.  For example, this, from a gentleman of Pell City, Alabama: 

     My wife is the residuary legatee of Virginia’s language, inherited,
     acquired and affected varieties, including the vanishing y;
     annihilated g; long-distance a, and irresistible drawl.