Tuesday, October 18, 2011

Handing out Compliments


A Scottish waller friend and I were driving back from the States and discussing the problem of being shown a wall (either being taken to see it, or perhaps in a photo) that someone has built which when you see it you realize right away, isn't very good. 

Sure you can politely say.
"That  looks very interesting." or "That's quite different."

Or you could just say "Wow!" 

But there are even better comments to deal with this awkward problem.
.
My friend told me about a journalist he knew who often had articles submitted to him that weren't that good and began thinking up ways to deal with the problem and eventually accumulated a number of useful replies.

Here are a few of them.

"You certainly have a style all your own."

"You must be really pleased with what you've done."

"You know, I would never thought of doing that ."

And my favorite,

"Has anybody ever told you how good you are?"



We came up with a few others on our drive home, one of which was, 

"Im wondering if this might possibly be you best work?"

Are there any other tactful responses you can think of?
Please feel free to add them as comments on today's post.