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.