The Book of Tells (Peter Collett)[unlocked]

CONVERSATION TELLS
what they seem, or who want to put forward another
point of view. People often set up contrasts by describing
one set of affairs, only to negate part of it later on. For
example, your friend might tell you that her husband is
very loving, but that he does like to have his privacy. By
setting up this contrast, your friend is doing several things
- she's showing you that she doesn't have a onedimensional
view of her husband, and that she doesn't
approve of his desire for privacy.
SOFTENERS. People often say things that are designed to
soften the impact of what they are going to say next. If
you're going to criticize someone, you might say something
like, 'I don't want you to take this the wrong way',
before you tell them what you think about their table
manners, the company they keep, or their inability to
arrive on time. Softeners like 'I hope you don't think I'm
being rude' and 'I don't want to be critical' are usually
two-faced because they provide a cloak under which
people can be rude and critical while denying that it's
their intention to do so. The sociologist Eugene Weinstein
called these linguistic devices 'pre-interpretations', or
'printerps' for short. 16 The potency of the printerp lies in
its ability to defuse other people's negative reactions - by
telling someone that you don't want them to take your
next remark the wrong way you are in effect ruling out
their normal response. You're also providing yourself with a
linguistic bunker - somewhere you can hide if the other
person does take offence and brings out the big guns. Of
course it doesn't follow that the person who is offered a
printerp automatically accepts it. For example, you might
say to your friend, 'I don't want you to take this amiss'.
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