RDUSA201905

Don’t Obsess over a Misfire
The high you get from spearing your
opponent with a verbal thrust can
be shadowed by its opposite: the low
that comes from blurting out a lame
response.
If it doesn’t go your way, the rapper
iLLspokinn advises brushing off your
missed opportunity rather than dwell-
ing on your error: “It can be toxic to
hold on to it,” he says.

Delays Can Be Fatal
When you are conversing via text or
social media, you get a few extra min-
utes to think through your responses.
That could improve the quality of your
zinger, but don’t deliberate for too
long. Replies lose their punch after
a day or so. “Speed is integral to wit,
whether in real life or screen life,” says
Scott Talan, a social media expert at
American University.

In fact, some companies have

learned to deploy quick-witted social

media retorts as a marketing strategy.

Wendy’s Twitter account has become

so well-known for its sassy replies that

some users try to intentionally pro-

voke it, almost like a battle of the wits.

“Bet you won’t follow me @Wendys,”

a user challenged. “You won that bet,”

Wendy’s immediately shot back.

George Costanza also learned that

he who hesitates often loses in the

comeback game. He meets his shrimp

nemesis again at a business meeting

and takes the opportunity to use his

old “the jerk store called and they’re

running out of you” line. Too late! The

guy already has a comeback for the

comeback: “What’s the difference?”

he asks with a smile. “You’re their all-

time bestseller.”

mentalfloss.com (july 16, 2018), copyright © 2018

by talib visram.

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The Genius Section

Why Aren’t Women “Charming” Anymore?

It makes sense that we associate certain adjectives more with women

(such as maternal) and some more with men (gallant). The surprising finding

of a Stanford University study of language and gender is how much our

associations have changed over the past century—and how much they

haven’t. The researchers examined databases of books, newspapers,

and online sources to see which adjectives were linked most often with which

gender. In the first half of the 20th century, adjectives such as intelligent

and logical were associated more with men, but the words have increasingly

been associated with women since the 1960s. The most common

word used to describe women in the 1910s was charming, but by

the 1990s, it didn’t even make the top ten—but tidy did.