Today, I’m going to talk about words and phrases, and then ask for your help.
I used to work for the company that ran the Scary Mommy website. We ran an article once by Leigh Anderson, in which she proposed banning the phrase “Can’t you just…” from parenting conversations.
Imagine: A mom or dad (probably a mom; this was Scary Mommy after all) is venting about how it’s hard to find time to prepare home-cooked meals every day, or how she wishes her kids watched less TV, or any of a million other common parenting gripes.
A well-meaning friend chimes in:
“Can’t you just … cook the meals on the weekend, then freeze them and heat them during the week?”
“Can’t you just … set out some crayons? That’ll keep them busy for a bit.”
“Can’t you just … put the baby in a stroller and come visit us?”
It’s a small thing, Anderson conceded, but starting out with these three words signals to the other person that you don’t think their concerns are at all valid. And that, intentionally or not, cuts off any consideration of truly good ideas you might want to offer next.
The article stuck with me. I don’t think I’ve ever said “Can’t you just…” since reading it. (Well, except as part of a running joke my wife and I now have: “Can’t you just carry the piano upstairs by yourself?”)
It also sparked me to be on the lookout for other seemingly innocuous, throwaway phrases that can unintentionally undermine what people are trying to say.
For example, the common greeting: “How are you doing? Good?”
I think we can usually do better. It’s not often that people really want to hear how someone is doing when asking that question. So they wind up starting a conversation with a small but legitimate untruth.
Plus, if you signal the acceptable answer in the greeting: “Good?” That’s like doubling down on not really wanting to know.
Again: it’s a small thing. Most people won’t even notice that they’re shooting themselves in the rhetorical foot. But why be like most people?
Oh, I have a ton of these:
“I know how you feel.”
I think we say this because we’re trying to suggest empathy, but it rarely exists in reality. It’s hard to truly know how someone else feels, and so these five words can be unintentionally dismissive. Better to mirror back what they’ve said, like: “It sounds like you’re saying… [what they just said].”
“It’s not hard.”
This one is all over social media. Someone articulates what they see as a complicated dilemma, and someone else wants to troll them by saying the answer is obvious. Usually, it’s less about offering solutions than it is about belittling.
"I don't want to fight, but..."
No matter what you say in the second half of this sentence, it could be replaced with "...but I'm going to say something that could start a fight." Truthfully, sometimes you do have to fight. But why not own it?
"You always..." (or "you never...")
It’s not just me saying this one. Ever been in couples therapy? Ever read a book on relationships? Basically, if you generalize during an argument, you run a good risk of overstating your case and thus undermining your argument.
OK, this is where you come in. At least I hope so. If you’ve read any of my free Ubooks, you might have a sense of where I’m going with this.
Part of the plan here at Understandably is to publish a series of succinct nonfiction ebooks—free to paid subscribers, very reasonably priced for everyone else—that are designed to be read in about an hour and provide you with useful insights or actionable ideas on some topic.
As an experiment, the first one I’m working on is a short ebook that covers exactly this issue:
How to train yourself to choose words wisely, so that you don’t unintentionally undermine your goals with your word choices.
It’s coming along pretty well: kind of a compendium of word choices. Imagine Eat This, Not That, only it’s about language. (Caveat: I’ve never actually read Eat This, Not That. But Say This, Not That is a pretty good title.)
Anyway, I have never regretted asking for help from this amazing group of readers, so I would like to do that today. In short, I’d like to hear your thoughts on this whole concept:
Are there words or phrases that you’ve come to realize don’t mean exactly what people think they mean?
Sayings you’ve learned (maybe the hard way) not to use, because they can get in the way of your true point?
Prompts or scripts you’ve memorized to get other people to open up and talk freely? Polite ways to turn direct conversations in the way that you want them to go?
It’s a broad topic, but I’d love to hear what you come up with. If your suggestions wind up in the ebook, of course, you’ll get credit—and maybe some other cool rewards if I can be creative enough to think of something good.
Thanks for considering. We can discuss your ideas in the comments—or else, feel free as well just to reply to this newsletter (It will go directly to my inbox) or email me directly. Thanks, and have a great weekend!
7 other things worth your time
The White House is leaning toward releasing information to Congress about what Donald Trump and his aides were doing during the Jan. 6 attack on the US Capitol despite the former president’s objections. Members of Congress say Trump can no longer claim executive privilege, because he’s no longer president. Expect a legal battle. (WashPost)
A gunman opened fire inside a Tennessee grocery store on Thursday, killing one and injuring 12 others, authorities said. The gunman was found dead of an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound. To follow up on a discussion in the comments earlier this week, this counts as a mass shooting. (CBS News)
The Biden administration’s special envoy to Haiti resigned in protest of “inhumane” large-scale expulsions of Haitian migrants to their homeland as it is wracked by civil strife and natural disaster, US officials said Thursday. (AP)
Business Insider and the Arizona Republic both say they have obtained a leaked copy of a report on the secret election audit in Arizona, and that the months-long hand recount confirms President Biden won the state in 2020, by 360 more votes than the official tally showed. The official report is supposed to come out today. (Business Insider)
California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a new law Thursday that bars mega-retailers from firing warehouse workers for missing quotas that interfere with bathroom and rest breaks, or disciplining workers for following health and safety laws. (KTLA)
The European Union proposed new rules on Thursday that will make USB-C ports standard on new devices. Apple, which uses the proprietary Lightning charger, is not happy. (CNN)
At the height of the last Ice Age, generations of children and teenagers ambled barefoot along a muddy lakefront in what is now New Mexico, crossing paths with mammoths, giant ground sloths, and an extinct canine species known as the dire wolf. Now, some 23,000 years later, the young people’s fossilized footprints are yielding new insights into when humans first populated the Americas: about 10,000 years earlier than previously thought, scientists reported Thursday. (WSJ)
Thanks for reading, as always. Photo credit: Pixabay. Want to see all my mistakes? Click here.
Want to open up the conversation? A simple, “tell me more about that” will do the trick every time.
Maybe a bit off the path but being married to someone who has worked years with domestic abuse cases I’ve learned and used the “fair fight rules” that uses a lot of prescribed verbiage cues. Worth looking up and learning for anyone wanting to create an open dialogue during a tense time.