Make Your Hair Worse

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, my name is Michelle. I’m calling from Nashville, Tennessee.

Hey, Michelle.

Hi, Michelle. What’s up?

Hi, Grant. Hi, Martha.

Hi.

I was hoping you could settle a bet for me.

I was at the bar a couple weeks ago, and I got into a little bicker with my boyfriend over the implication of a word.

What’s on the line?

The penalty for him, he’s never wrong.

So his penalty would be he has to make a public apology on Facebook to me.

And he also has to wear out a T-shirt that says,

Michelle was right and I was wrong on a Saturday night.

Wow.

I like it.

I like it.

And you, what if you’re wrong?

My penalty, and I really don’t want to have to do it,

Is I will campaign for Donald Trump for one day.

Oh, boy.

Oh, boy. That’s a lot on the line.

I think that’s a perfectly balanced bet there.

All right. So what’s the bickering about?

We both believe the word worse has different implications.

I was talking about something like, oh, I’m thinking about cutting my hair.

And he said, well, if you want to make it worse, I’m fine with that.

Whoa!

So what I’m saying is worse to me implies that it was bad to begin with.

And his example was it just means it’s less good.

Like if you took a pristine car and put a dent in it, then it would be worse than it was before.

But, you know, when someone’s talking about how they were feeling, how were you feeling worse than yesterday,

You kind of assume that they were feeling bad the day before, don’t you?

Yeah, you do.

And the funny thing is, if they were saying, oh, I’m feeling better than yesterday,

You also feel that they were probably sick yesterday.

Right.

Or not necessarily.

Well, we’ll get into that, right?

Because I’m hearing what you’re saying here, Michelle,

And I suspect that both sides have really strong cases.

Okay, good.

Wait, so when he said that about something about making your hair worse,

What was your response to him?

It was, hold on, wait a minute.

And he said, oh, no, I didn’t mean it was bad.

I like it how it is, but I don’t want you to make it worse.

Right.

Or if you want to make it worse, that’s, you know, on you.

But you took that as an insult to your hair as it currently is.

Yes.

Yeah, I did too.

Yeah, I heard your sharp intake of breath.

I would not like to be told that.

No.

And probably the only diplomatic thing, though, he could have said,

Because Better has a similar problem is he probably could have said,

I love your hair the way it is.

Well, like I said, we were at the bar.

Or even better, he could have no opinion at all and say,

Whatever you want, I’m behind you 100%.

Oh, that’s not him at all.

Okay.

So what you’re looking for is some mediation here.

I need some mediation.

No, what she’s looking for is for him to have to endure the penalty.

I think that’s what she’s looking for.

Don’t make me wrong here.

I think Martha’s intake of breath is a really strong indicator that though what he said could be taken both ways,

I think Martha and I both believe that in colloquial speech,

The assumption with the way that he phrased it or the way that you repeated back what he said,

Does really, really suggest that there is something currently wrong with your hair.

Okay, and then what about his example?

If you put a dent in a car, is it worse or is it just not as pristine as it was before?

Well, let’s talk about that a second.

A car isn’t the kind of thing where you have regular conversations about what to do with it.

A haircut is very much a style feature of a human being.

We invest a huge amount of energy into our hair, and it shows whether or not we belong to certain peer groups.

It shows whether or not we care about our health, which shows a lot of things about us.

And a car isn’t quite that.

I mean, I know that people are obsessed about their automobiles, but a haircut is a thing that you discuss regularly with your friends and family about what am I going to do with this?

Should I get it curled?

Should I get it cut?

Should I go bald?

Well, I think besides the subject matter, I think what we’re talking about is an adjective and then the comparative form of the adjective and then the superlative.

I mean, we learn good, better, and best.

Bad, worse, worse.

And so I think if you say worse, then the implied original form of that adjective would be bad.

Yeah, that it’s currently bad.

Yeah, I think what he should have said is that would make your hair look bad.

Right.

That’s a great point.

And the context matters.

It’s not the words alone.

It’s who said it, to whom, and where, and about what.

And that’s where I think it comes down in your favor.

Okay.

Right?

But it could in another situation.

He could be.

Yeah.

It’s super easy to get distracted by all these possible parallel universes where a different thing was said in a different circumstance about an automobile or something else.

But that isn’t what happened.

Right?

We have to talk about the very thing that happened.

So I think we’re talking about printing up a T-shirt.

Yeah, I think you are.

I think it needs to be bright pink.

Maybe.

Yeah, do we get a say in what color it is?

I think it needs a sailor neck and cap sleeves.

And it needs to be one of those bi-level things that women are wearing where it’s longer in the back and has slits on the sides.

Oh, my goodness.

Right?

Because you didn’t specify, like, the canonical male T-shirt, did you?

I was thinking bright red to draw attention to it.

Okay.

That would work.

And I think glitter letters.

Oh, glitter.

Yeah.

Oh, that would be nice.

Get out the spangler, man.

Spangle that thing.

Yeah.

And so I have one more question.

Did you get your hair cut?

Oh, no.

No, I wasn’t actually going to.

Oh.

Oh.

And I was going to say, and how does it look?

You were just needling him.

Okay.

Well, this sounds like it’s going to be ongoing for a while.

So, Michelle, will you call us back and let us know how it goes?

I suspect that when you go back to him and tell him what we said, he’s going to say, yeah, but what do they know?

Yeah.

Yeah, he is.

So, I guess thank you very much, and I’m sure it’ll keep going on.

Yeah, so, in my opinion, you should not only tell him what we said, but when you tell him, have the T-shirt already in hand and already made and go, here you go.

If you don’t want to make our relationship worse, you will put this on.

This is for you.

You lost.

Oh, thank you so much.

Okay.

Take care, Michelle.

Thank you, Michelle.

Yeah.

Have a good day.

Okay.

You too.

Bye-bye.

Bye.

That’s a tough one.

It is a tough one.

But again, like I say, you know, when you have arguments with people, you take semantic outs

And you do the thesaurus defense.

Well, like it could also mean X, right?

Yeah, yeah.

But I think the case is really clear here that he poorly chose his words, and they are opened up to—there’s possible other interpretations.

But I think it’s pretty clear that the message received was negative, and conversation has two people, the speaker and the listener.

And if the listener doesn’t understand or understands differently than intended, that’s actually what matters more than what was intended.

Intention doesn’t rule.

Well, what about what I just said about, honey, you have to wear this shirt unless you want to make our relationship worse.

That’s another example.

Oh, that’s nice.

Yeah.

Did you say that on purpose that way?

Sure.

Yeah.

I’m brilliant.

That’s right.

But that’s a great example of that.

Yeah.

Maybe our listeners have different opinions.

I know they do.

And they’ll start, you know, thesaurus lawyering us all over the place.

Well, we want to hear it.

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