"YOU-ALL" AND OTHER SECTIONAL MISUNDERSTANDINGS
Let us make an honorable retreat.
--AS YOU LIKE IT.
Those who write school histories and wish them adopted by southern
schools have to handle the Civil War with gloves. Such words as "rebel"
and "rebellion" are resented in the South, and the historian must go
softly in discussing slavery, though he may put on the loud pedal in
speaking of State Rights, the fact being that the South not only knows
now, but, as evidenced by the utterances of her leading men, from
Jefferson to Lee, knew long before the war that slavery was a great
curse; whereas, on the question of State Rights, including the
theoretical right to secede from the Union--this being the actual
question over which the South took up arms--there is much to be said on
the southern side. Colonel Robert Bingham, superintendent of the Bingham
School, Asheville, North Carolina, has made an exhaustive study of the
question of secession, and has set forth his findings in several
scholarly and temperately written booklets.
Colonel Bingham proves absolutely, by quotation of their own words,
that the framers of the Constitution regarded that document as a
_compact_ between the several States. He shows that three of the States
(Virginia, New York, and Rhode Island) joined in this compact
_conditionally_, with the clear purpose of resuming their independent
sovereignty as States, should the general government use its power for
the oppression of the States; that up to the time of the Mexican War the
New England States contended for, not against, the right to secede; that
John Quincy Adams went so far as to negotiate with England with a view
to the secession of the New England States, because of Jefferson's
Embargo Act, and moreover that up to 1840 the United States Government
used as a textbook for cadets at West Point, Rawle's "View of the
Constitution," a book which teaches that the Union is dissoluble. Robert
E. Lee and Jefferson Davis, were, therefore, in all probability, given
this book as students at West Point, and consequently, if we would have
honest history, we must face the astonishing fact that there is evidence
to show _that they learned the doctrine of secession at the United
States Military Academy_.
Colonel Bingham, who, it may be remarked, served with distinction in the
Confederate Army, has very kindly supplemented, in a letter to me, his
published statements. He writes:
Secession was legal _theoretically_, but practically the conditions
on which the thirteen Independent Republics, covering a little
strip on the Atlantic coast, came to an agreement, could not
possibly be applied to the great inter-Oceanic Empire into which
these thirteen Independent Republics had developed.
"Theory is a good horse in the stable, but may make an arrant jade
on the journey"--to paraphrase Goldsmith--and the only way in which
these irreconcilable differences could be settled was by bullet and
bayonet, which settled them right and finally.
Once such matters as these are fully understood in the North, there will
be left but one grave issue between North and South, that issue being
over the question of whether or not Southerners, under any
circumstances, use the phrase "you-all" in the singular.
"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."
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.
To quell the unfortunate tumult that has arisen in our household as
a result of your last article in "Collier's" I am commanded to
advise you that the use of "you-all" in the singular is
absodamnlutely _non est factum_ in Virginia, save, perhaps, among
the hill people of the Blue Ridge.
Also, take notice that when your hostess, with apparent
inadvertence, used the expression in connection with sugar in your
demi-tasse, the subsequent blush was due to your failure to catch
her witticism, ignorantly mistaking it for a lapse of hers.
My wife was going to write to you herself, but I managed to divert
this cruel determination by promising to uphold the honor of the
Old Dominion. There is already too much blood being shed in the
world without spilling that of non-combatants as would have been
"you-all's" fate had she gone after you with a weapon more mighty
than the sword when in the hands of Mr. Wilson or an outraged
woman.
In face of all this and much more, however, my conviction was unshaken.
I talked it over with my companion. He remembered the episode of the
dinner table exactly as I did. Moreover, I still had my notes, made in
the hotel that night. The lady looked at me. My companion was several
places removed from her at the other side of the table. How could she
have meant to include him? And how could she have expected me to say how
he took his after-dinner coffee?
At last, to reassure myself, I wrote to the wisest, cleverest, most
trustworthy lady in the South, and asked her what it all meant.
"Well," she wrote back from Atlanta, "I will tell you, but I am not sure
that you will understand me. The answer is: _She did, but she didn't_.
She looked at and spoke to you and, of course, by all rules of logic she
could not have been intending to make you Morg's keeper in the matter of
coffee dressing. _But_ she never would have said 'you-all' if Morg had
not been in her mind as joined with you. The response, according to her
thought-connotation, would have been from you _and_ from him."
This was disconcerting. So was a letter, received in the same mail, from
a gentleman in Charleston:
It is as plain as the nose on your face that you are not yet
convinced that we in the South _never_ use "you-all" with reference
to one person. The case you mentioned proves nothing at all. The
very fact that there were _two_ strangers present justified the use
of the expression; we continually use the expression in that way,
and in such cases we expect an answer from _both_ persons so
addressed. To illustrate: just a few days ago I "carried" two girls
into an "ice-cream parlor." After we were seated, I looked at the
one nearest me, and said: "Well, what will you-all have?"
Physically we are so constructed that unless a person is cross-eyed
it is impossible to look at two persons at once; the mere fact that
I looked at the one nearest me did not mean that I was not
addressing both. I expected an answer from both, and I got it, too
(as is generally the case where ice-cream is concerned).
The subject is one to which I have devoted the most careful
attention for many years. I have been so interested in it that
almost unconsciously, whenever I myself use the expression
"you-all," or hear any one else use it, I note whether it is
intended to refer to one or to more than one person. I have heard
thousands of persons, white, black and indifferent, use the
expression, and the only ones I have ever heard use it incorrectly
are what we might call "professional Southerners." For instance,
last week I went to a vaudeville show, and part of the performance
was given by two "black-face" comedians, calling themselves "The
Georgia Blossoms." Their dialect was excellent, with the single
exception that one of them _twice_ used the expression "you-all"
where it could not _possibly_ have meant more than one person. And
I no sooner heard it than I said to myself: "There is _one_ blossom
that never bloomed in Georgia!"
Another instance is the following: I was once approached by a
beggar in Atlanta, who saluted me thus: "Say, mister, can't you-all
give me a nickel?" Had I been accompanied it would have been all
right, but I was alone, and there was no other person near me
except the hobo. Did I give him the nickel? I should say not! I
said to myself: "He is a damned Yankee trying to pass himself off
for a Southerner."
Horrid glimmerings began to filter dimly through. And yet--
Next day came a letter calling my attention to an article, written years
ago by Joel Chandler Harris and Thomas Nelson Page, jointly, in which
they plead with northern writers not to misuse the disputed expression
by applying it in the singular.
That was another shock. I felt conviction tottering.... But she _did_
look at me.... She _didn't_ expect an answer from my companion....
And then behold! a missive from Mr. H.E. Jones, a member--and a worthy
one--of the Tallapoosa County Board of Education, and a resident of
Dadeville, Alabama. Mr. Jones' educational activities reach far beyond
Tallapoosa County, and far beyond the confines of his State, for he has
educated me. He has made me see the light.
"I want to straighten you out," he wrote, kindly. "We never use
'you-all' in the singular. Not even the most ignorant do so. But, as you
know," (Ah, that was mercifully said!) "there are some peculiar, almost
unexplainable, shades of meaning in local idioms of speech, which are
not easy for a stranger to understand. I have a friend who was reared in
Milwaukee and is a graduate of the University of Wisconsin, who tells me
he would have argued the 'you-all' point with all comers for some years
following his taking up his residence here, but he is at this time as
ready as I to deny the allegation and 'chaw the alligator.'
"When your young lady, in Virginia, asked, 'Do you-all take sugar?' she
mentally included Mr. Morgan, and perhaps all other Yankees. I would ask
my local grocer, 'Will you-all sell me some sugar this morning?' meaning
his establishment, collectively, although I addressed him personally;
but I would _not_ ask my only servant, 'Have you-all milked the cow?'"
And that is the exact truth.
I was absolutely wrong. And though, having printed the ghastly falsehood
in my original article, I can hardly hope now for absolution from the
outraged South, I can at least retract, as I hereby do, and can,
moreover, thank Mr. H.E. Jones, of Tallapoosa County, Alabama, for
having saved me from a double sin; for had he not given me the simple
illustration of the grocery store, I might have repeated, now, my
earlier misstatement.