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.