190 I Can Read You Like a Book A
on tap. I had a favorite waitress at this bar, who reminded me of a
young Jacqueline Bisset. Though unlike Ms. Bisset, she was not a
bright light. When she decided to leave the bar for better pay, she
mentioned the name of the restaurant. I said I had never heard of
the place. She said, “Oh, it is a fine-dining establishment down-
town.” And those words came from whose head? One afternoon I
was in the area and stopped by. Below the name of the restaurant
were the words “a fine-dining establishment.”
Similarly, the shift to simpler language can represent what is
going on in a person’s head. Perhaps she is dumbing down to play
you—an old trick of some not-so-dumb blondes. Or is he trying to
sound less intelligent to make you feel comfortable? You can also
watch for length of sentence and pronoun choice to better under-
stand a person’s intentions, distractions, and so on. Pronoun shift
from “I” to “we” can mean he wants to share the blame for some-
thing: for example, saying “We have to go now” early into a party
that only he finds boring.
Vocal: Servant of the highest bidder
Vocal is the “servant of the highest bidder” because, under
enough stress, the voice will sell out the will and tell you exactly
what the mind contains. Volumes could be written about different
tones and their meaning; everyone reading this book has heard these
utterances. Remember your mother or some teacher wagging a
finger at you saying, “It’s not what you said, it’s the way you said
it!” I’m convinced that every day in every town, those words make it
into the airwaves. If the human voice was the first musical instrument,
