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The Weather and the Words in Passing - part
4
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The human heart is so constructed that it is practically helpless against an honest compliment brought to it by a friend. Such a compliment acts doubly. First of all, it is agreeable in itself. Secondly, being carried by a friend it has already had the audience that everyone yearns for who has a good thing to boast of. As we said before, the besetting temptation is to glorify oneself, but the relayed compliment is already shared with a friend to whom we most would like to tell such a thing. It makes the fearful temptation to self-praise superfluous — and so earns eternal gratitude.
There is a contrary to this, of course. For the thing than which there is nothing worse is to relay some unfavorable item you have heard. Even merely objective news which is unflattering should not be passed on. Never report such things for example as, "My neighbor told me your son flunked in algebra." To do so is twice as wrong as if you merely said, "Too bad your son flunked in algebra," for it arouses an active suspicion in your hearer that your neighbor goes about telling other uncomplimentary matters about him and his family.
But the thing for which a millstone should be hanged about a person's neck to drown him in a deserted swimming pool reserved for lepers is the relaying of an uncomplimentary remark, some incidental criticism. Anyone who says, "Talking of you with John the other day, he happened to remark that your dancing is lousy/' or, "Your butcher happened to say that you are his cheapest customer" or "Mr. Stone was wondering how, with your salary, you could afford a new car," ought to be ostracized from respectable company. These are unforgivable offenses against society. They are like throwing sand into a grandfather's clock.
It is no excuse to say, "Well, these people had no business making uncomplimentary comments in the first place." That may or may not be true. But the harm is not so much in making them as in relaying them. In fact, their greatest danger always is that some uncivilized hearer may relay them. Of course, everybody should be careful all the time not to comment unfavorably about anyone. However, the fact remains that in the hurly-burly of life people will casually and thoughtlessly and not slanderously comment unfavorably upon others. Often the comment is in fact only a qualification of otherwise favorable remarks. A person may say, "Clara is such a charming girl, bright, with a sparkling personality. If only she would learn how to dance." The total effect of this comment is quite harmless, but if only the part about the dancing is relayed, the harm and hurt can be grievous. Clara may never afterward be able to feel wholeheartedly friendly toward the commenter. Once a fellow, "raving" about a girl, also added that she was a sloppy dresser. This latter was passed on, and all his subsequent reiteration of the compliments in which the remark was buried failed to heal the breach.
Related terms include dictionary speak and improve listening.
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