Edie, who lives in a suburb of Rochester, N.Y., chanced upon one of my grammar columns and came knocking at my door on the Internet. Our discussion led from Bubba, the quintessential gentleman of Southern yeomanry, to Shelby Foote, the highly acclaimed author and narrator who sketches Southern virtues and vices with a loving brush.Our regional biases quickly became evident.Edie envisioned Bubba as a rustic rube incapable of speaking a grammatical sentence. I view him as a virtuoso with a wrench, a man of quick mind and versatile talents.I view Foote as a man with a clear-eyed view of the...