Contradictory to reality
'You both could be mistaken for sisters'
A person not very familiar to the 'subject' in the above sentence utters so!
Is it a compliment to the elder of the two or a degradation for the younger girl? Generally, the intention of the speaker might be meant as a compliment to the elder lady! However there is a possibility of the younger girl (probably the daughter) taking it as an offensive statement, right?
To avoid such conflicts, it is rather safe to say to the elder lady(!) that she looks surprisingly young. The mother (!) is happy and at the same time the daughter is not offended. May be she also would be happy to hear that her mother looks younger!
When someone does a task, you say that 'no one can do it like you'. It could be a positive comment or a sarcastic one as well! It could have actually meant that 'you have messed it up'. Only if the listener is smart enough, he will be able to decipher the real meaning behind the sentence. Do not go by the superficial meaning, per se!
I read it in a Chetan Bhagat novel. A palm-reader tells his client that he has never seen a great palm like his client's, ever before. On further questioning, the palm-reader accepts that he tells the same thing to all his clients to make them happy and make them give the fees demanded by him. It is a business trick.
We face similar situations in life all the time. The person spoken to should be really smart to understand the real meaning ignoring the superficial meaning.
A person not very familiar to the 'subject' in the above sentence utters so!
Is it a compliment to the elder of the two or a degradation for the younger girl? Generally, the intention of the speaker might be meant as a compliment to the elder lady! However there is a possibility of the younger girl (probably the daughter) taking it as an offensive statement, right?
To avoid such conflicts, it is rather safe to say to the elder lady(!) that she looks surprisingly young. The mother (!) is happy and at the same time the daughter is not offended. May be she also would be happy to hear that her mother looks younger!
When someone does a task, you say that 'no one can do it like you'. It could be a positive comment or a sarcastic one as well! It could have actually meant that 'you have messed it up'. Only if the listener is smart enough, he will be able to decipher the real meaning behind the sentence. Do not go by the superficial meaning, per se!
I read it in a Chetan Bhagat novel. A palm-reader tells his client that he has never seen a great palm like his client's, ever before. On further questioning, the palm-reader accepts that he tells the same thing to all his clients to make them happy and make them give the fees demanded by him. It is a business trick.
We face similar situations in life all the time. The person spoken to should be really smart to understand the real meaning ignoring the superficial meaning.
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