You Call That a Compliment?
A little praise is always nice – except when it’s a backhander…
Readers share backhanders.
One day, if the stars are aligned and you’ve worked hard to do the right thing, you, too, might be lucky enough to receive a lovely compliment like the one Nancy Phelan got a few years back. “When I was visiting my son, his fiancée and her children,” Nancy wrote to Reader’s Digest, “I made them a specialty of mine: breakfast pizza. After eating several slices, my eightyear-old future grandson leaned back in his chair and proclaimed, ‘This is so good, it makes my tongue dance!’ ” Alas, life isn’t always so sweet. In fact, we sometimes get treated to a more stinging kind of praise – the backhanded compliment. We asked you for some of the favourite backhanders you’ve heard or endured. It’s OK to laugh. We did.
I HAD JOINED AN AEROBICS CLASS
made up mostly of older women like me. At first, it was difficult to follow all the steps, but after a few weeks I felt that I had a good grasp of the routines. One day, a fellow classmate stopped me to say, “I’ve been noticing you. You’re very coordinated.” I couldn’t have been prouder. “Thank you,” I replied. “Yes,” she continued, “your shirt matches your pants, and your pants match your socks.”
Joyce Thomasson
WHEN I WAS IN MY 20s,
I had a streak of grey hair. One day, a complete stranger noticed and said, “I really like your grey hair. Where did you get it done?”
“Oh, thanks,” I said. “It’s natural.” She recoiled. “Oh my, what are you going to do about it?”
Donna Calvert
A STUDENT STOPPED ME
in the hallway to say that she’d just learned that her mother had had me as a teacher. Then, after looking me up and down, she asked, “Did you used to be good-looking?”
Bob Isitt
AS A WANNABE MUSICIAN,
I took advantage of an opportunity to play with a local recorder group. During a break in our first rehearsal, the woman sitting next to me, an accomplished musician, said, “You have a beautiful vibrato!”
I was basking in the glow of her praise when she added, “You’re not supposed to.”
Vicki Morrison Goble
WHEN I MET MY BROTHER’S NEW FATHER-IN-LAW,
he took my hand and said warmly, “You look just like your brother. He has a big nose, too.”
Marie Ball
ONE MORNING
shortly after we got married in our 60s, my husband and I were sitting on the bed putting on our socks and shoes. Out of the blue, he reached over and patted me on the knee, saying, “I am so glad we got married.”
He was being romantic, and I appreciated it. “Me, too,” I said.
He continued, “Do you have any idea how nice it is to open my dresser drawer and find my underwear and socks all folded nice and neatly?”
K.C. via email
MY GRANDMA USED TO TELL ME,
“There’s no conceit in your family. You’ve got it all.”
Devon Christenson
“HAPPY BIRTHDAY!
You don’t look 60, but I remember when you did!” Susie Barr
AFTER I SANG A SOLO
in church, an elderly gentleman offered me his highest compliment.
“I liked your song for two reasons,” he said. “You sang it well, and you didn’t sing too long.”
Ann Abernathy
IN HIGH SCHOOL,
a female classmate told me I’d “make a really handsome guy.”
Kimberley Coleman
SOMEHOW, A FRIEND
and I got on the subject of age, which led him to ask how old I was. “Thirty-seven,” I said.
He cocked his head and asked, “Is that all?”
Mary Carruth
WE ADOPTED OUR DAUGHTER
from China when she was nine, and we soon discovered that common English-language phrases and idioms didn’t always come easily.
You Call That a Compliment
Case in point, the time she tried to praise me for being outgoing and having lots of friends.
With a great big smile she declared, “When I grow up, I want to be a big mouth just like you!”
Amy Reynolds
AMONG MY ALL-TIME FAVOURITE MOVIES
is Babe. For years, whenever I wanted to compliment someone, I’d quote the film’s famous line: “That’ll do, Pig, that’ll do.”
Recently, I finally got my husband to watch the movie with me. When that scene came on, he turned to me, stunned. “It’s a compliment?
All these years I thought you were insulting me!”
Tiger Miller
OUR BOSS AT THE FACTORY
was a grump with a management philosophy that harked back to the sweatshops of old. A shift without being sworn at multiple times was considered a win. But one day, after I spotted and corrected a problem with one of the machines, he offered me the highest compliment he could think of. “Rich,” he said, “you’re stinking less at this job all the time.”
FROM A REFERENCE LETTER
written by my first boss: “Sarah is very lazy. When given a task she immediately figures out the easiest and quickest way to complete it. This tends to make her highly efficient.”
S. J. Garner
I WAS TAKING MY FOUR-YEAR-OLD
grandson out of his car seat when he gazed into my eyes and delivered this bit of wisdom: “Papa, you’re old. But at least you’re not dead yet.”
Owen Wilkie
A CLIENT WAS SO IMPRESSED
with my work, he made a point of calling to tell me that he had named his new puppy after me.
Sheila Compton
AFTER READING A POEM
I’d laboured over, my mother said, “This is good. Really good!”
I was beaming!
Then she felt compelled to ask, “Are you sure you wrote it?”
Theresa Baumbach