Why do some people inform an adult person who is tall of the fact that he or she is tall?

I have heard of Brave New World but knew nothing of it until now
Really? Never read it?
It’s time you did Elderly Person !
.

Adaunas Thank you for summing it up so succinctly.

What about 'Stepford Wives' ? All these books that make us all uniform are books about dystopias, not Utopias.

Even China, under MaoTse Tung, with everyone wearing the equivalents of boiler suits was a dystopian country, which did not work and in the end, to make economic progress and become a world power it was necessary for it to break away from this uniformity and allow difference.

Silverbridge

^I am wanting a society where regardless of height, girth, gender, education level, skin colour, wealth, disability, hair colour, and so on, everyone is treated with respect and is not stereotyped.^

Most of us do, but in this very long thread (in which you have over and over again drawn attention to your own height - the very thing you argue you don’t want attention drawn to), I’m struggling to think of one incident you have described which shows that you have been disrespected or stereotyped. I think you have to discount incidents of male aggression. I'm not saying they are unimportant, not at at all, but it is how male bravado works. It’s atavistic and animalistic.

A few pages back you were telling anecdotes about having not been successful in job applications suggesting that the decision makers (shorter men) had rejected you because you were taller and had been educated to a higher level. There's no evidence of lack of respect or stereotyping. There may just have been a more suitable candidate for the job. Where is your evidence? I could turn it around and argue that you thought you should have got the job because you were tall and had a degree. I'd argue you were not showing the decision maker respect in accepting that he knew which candidate was best for the job and who would suit the organisation. It's not always and only about skills and qualifications.

Three teachers sitting next to one another in a staff room all wearing plain grey suits and all reading a copy of the TES. One is tall and has dark skin. One is medium height and has a beard. One is shorter and has blonde hair. All teach different subjects. A new student comes into the room and tells a fourth teacher that he has been sent to speak to the geography teacher. How does teacher four point out which of the three men is the geography teacher? Which is he or she more likely to do? Use a quick and efficient descriptor (in which case which is acceptable) or tell the student it’s one of those three over there but as it would be disrespectful to mention any of their bodily attributes so he needs to go over to ask who's who?

Yes, you are right, I have drawn attention to my height. I suppose that that was implicit in me starting the thread. Even if I had added 'Asking for a friend' but that would not have been true and I may be mistaken but I think it has become an idiom.

Ah yes.

idioms.thefreedictionary.com/asking+for+a+friend

en.wiktionary.org/wiki/asking_for_a_friend

Oh I have been to various job interviews and the fact is most candidates don't get the job.

Lots of people who go for such jobs are graduates, some better qualified than me and having better experience.

Most times height does not come into it. People do not know height when drawing up a short list of people to invite for interview. I was not always shortlisted. When I have been shortlisted some I got some I didn't.

I just mentioned those two because of sudden dramatic changes that occurred when up until then things seemed to be going well.

I went to one job interview where the interviewer asked me "Tell me why you are the best candidate for the job" and I replied "Well I can't say that I am, I may not be, I have not seen the other candidates". Which was correct, though perhaps not the answer wanted.

For the puzzle of indicate the geography teacher. Then one of

The gentleman at the left.

The gentleman in the middle.

The gentleman at the right.

According to which one is the geography teacher.

This thread is very interesting for me, I now have a different perspective to some aspects. Hopefully it is interesting for other readers.

M0nica

What about 'Stepford Wives' ? All these books that make us all uniform are books about dystopias, not Utopias.

Even China, under MaoTse Tung, with everyone wearing the equivalents of boiler suits was a dystopian country, which did not work and in the end, to make economic progress and become a world power it was necessary for it to break away from this uniformity and allow difference.

Oh I saw that film about the Stepford Wives.

But it can also extend to some employers in relation to their staff. They employ people because they are bright and enthusiastic and creative with new ideas then have a work environment which restricts the very qualities that so impressed them at interview.

I read somewhere some time ago that in World War 2 care was taken with the austerity measures needed that civilian clothing had variety so that everybody did not all end up dressed identically because it was feared it would be bad for morale. So there were rules, like the maximum size of the repeat on dress fabric, and a maximum of four colours, but various colours and designs.

I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed or numbered. My life is my own. Number 6 : Be seeing you. Number 6 : I am not a number.

MayBeMaw

^I have heard of Brave New World but knew nothing of it until now^
Really? Never read it?
It’s time you did Elderly Person !
.

Yes you are right.

As it was written in 1931 that is 90 years ago and so I have a double motivation as I like to read books written long ago that predicted the future and consider how accurate or inaccurate they were.

Chewbacca

^I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed or numbered. My life is my^ ^own. Number 6 : Be seeing you. Number 6 : I am not a number.^

Maybe everyone here does not understand to what that is a reference.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Prisoner

Chewbacca

^I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed or numbered. My life is my^ ^own. Number 6 : Be seeing you. Number 6 : I am not a number.^

It was in a loop on the telly in our apartment at Portmeirion

Maybe everyone here does not understand to what that is a reference.

I think you do everyone here a grave injustice EP

ElderlyPerson

MayBeMaw

I have heard of Brave New World but knew nothing of it until now
Really? Never read it?
It’s time you did Elderly Person !
.

Yes you are right.

As it was written in 1931 that is 90 years ago and so I have a double motivation as I like to read books written long ago that predicted the future and consider how accurate or inaccurate they were.

You might like to read 1984 as well if you have not read that either.

You been to Portmeirion too Callistemon?

Yes, a birthday surprise

You might like to read some books by Shelby Foote, EP. He abhorred the idea of a perfect world as he felt it would bore him to tears.

4 weeks and 3 days Callistemon and I'll be there! ??

Chewbacca

4 weeks and 3 days Callistemon and I'll be there! ??

Lovely! I'd like to go again some time

Chewbacca

^Maybe everyone here does not understand to what that is a reference.^

I think you do everyone here a grave injustice EP

What I was intending to mean was that I was providing the link because some people here might not understand to what that is a reference.

So I wrote

Maybe everyone here does not understand to what that is a reference.

I realise now that I worded that incorrectly

Perhaps I should have put

Maybe not everyone here understands to what that is a reference.

Is that right?

Try it again differently

In case some people here do not understand to what that is a reference, here is a link.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Prisoner

Therein lies the danger of poor question phrasing because, of course, one doesn’t know who the competition is. Having to infer what people mean is a necessary skill in language interpretation. By the best candidate they meant a good candidate, your opportunity to say why you were a good candidate. Have you watched the film The Imitation Game about Alan Turing? Some good examples of language miscommunication in that as well as some literal language interpretation which changed the course of events.

Yes, you’ve got me there. It works in small numbers but extrapolate it to a larger group not necessarily organised in linear fashion and you are back to picking out physical attributes - schools a prime example.

Margaret Atwood prefers to call her novels speculative fiction rather than science fiction or dystopian - The Maddadam Trilogy, for example, and Haidmaid’s Tale and its sequel The Testaments. These are more recent, of course, but I think her writing may be scarily prophetic.

Novels such as Sarah Hall’s Carhullan Army and Colleen McCullough’s Creed for a Third Millenium examine the consequences of climate change. Floods and a new ice age in those books but the principle is the same. Large populations squeezed into diminishing habitable land mass, food scarcity and brutal totalitarian governments.

Emily St John Mandel’s Station Eleven is the story of the very few survivors of a swift and deadly pandemic.

Rumaan Alam’s Leave the World Behind examines the immediate aftermath of a global power failure.

All of the books describe totalitarian goverments or the catastrophe's that could lead to such.

And for those who would like to watch it all over again, all seventeen episodes of The Prisoner are on Britbox.

They’re just making conversation. It’s a feature that is outstanding, admired and just making a connection. If you don’t like it, think of a phrase that cuts the conversation with humour.

They're perhaps just making conversation.

I am getting bewildered by the way the OP keeps shifting what this thread is about.

First it was about informing people of their personal attributes, then it became about claims of being discriminated against because of your height in job interviews, although no good evidence for this was adduced, let alone proof that it was a common prejudice. Now 11 pages in we have references to stereotyping, which is something else entirely.

To inform someone they are tall is not to stereotype them. It is clearly an attribute they have. To ask someone taller than me to reach for something off a high supermarket shelf because I cannot reach it is not stereotyping. Even making silly and no doubt iritating jokes about the weather, or the view over a wall is not stereotyping.

Stereotyping is assuming that everyone who is tall is good at maths, bad at emotions, for example, so suitable for a job as an accountant but not as a councellor and acting on that stereotype.

Beng asked why you think you are the best person for the job is what job interviews are all about. You have been shortlisted because, on paper, you look to be one of the most qualified (in the widest sense) for the job, now they want to meet you and talk to you to find out more about you and give you a chance to show that you really are the person they are looking for. Whether the other candidates are better or worse and whether you know that or not is irrelevant. That is up to the interviewer to decide after the interviews are complete. Your job is to convince the person interviewing you, to the best of your ability, that you are the person for the job. Sometimes you succeed, sometimes you fail.

Which brings me back to the start. Exactly what is it that bothers you about being tall?

Silverbridge wrote:

> Yes, you’ve got me there.

Oh I didn't mean it like that. To me it was just a sort of mathematical problem and that was the answer.

That type of solution could be used for four or five teachers but once it gets to six, seven or eight teachers or more then the set of possible answers does become rapidly much more complicated and go beyond what could be regarded as a socially reasonable answer.

Sharina

They’re just making conversation. It’s a feature that is outstanding, admired and just making a connection. If you don’t like it, think of a phrase that cuts the conversation with humour.

No, that can be dangerous. A person who is replied to in a way that is just banter-returned can often turn very violent.

There are lots of "smart" answers to the comments that get made. Some have quite nasty implications. I don't want to say things like that to people, I don't want to hurt them. Being tall has not made me despise people who are not tall.

Good morning, EP.

The postitional response is an interesting one though. Say the supermarket displays it's cornflakes on the top shelf out of my easy reach. All the sizes are there. I ask for assistance. I'm more likely to ask someone to pass me the big box of cornflakes rather than the one on the left or right.

It may sound a trivial disinction but goes to the heart of the issue, that we continually make comparisons based on size. We are taught to from an early age. The elephant is bigger than the mouse. The giraffe is taller than the horse. Daddy Bear’s chair is bigger than Mummy Bear’s chair is bigger than Baby Bear’s chair. David took on and beat Goliath even though he was much smaller.

We learn about monetary value and economy. A pound buys more than 10p. A bigger box of cornflakes, coffee, soap powder is better value than a smaller one.

We learn stereotyping from old wive’s tales and pop culture. Redheads have a fiery temper, blondes have more fun, men don’t make passes at girls who wear glasses.

We learn about ambition and success and how it equates to height. Success is having an office on the top floor of a skyscraper. Piloting a plane in the air is more prestigious than digging coal underground. Living in a penthouse is better than living in a dingy basement. Top of the charts, top of the league, top of the polls, top of the bestseller list.

On and on it goes. It becomes ingrained. A child can spend hours in school being taught to judge size and to make comparisons. Then, on the bus home, when he points out to Mummy that the man sitting in that seat there is taller than the man sitting in that seat over there, he’s told to Shh and not be rude. What a confusing world it is! So we develop conversation filters - some do better than others at this.

We store that ability to compare and use it every day. We size people up. The tall man in the supermarket aisle is going to more useful to me than the shorter one if I need help getting cornflakes from the top shelf.

We all have a constant dialogue in our head which has to be filtered so we only say what is acceptable out loud. What is deemed acceptable may be based on personal sensibility and how comfortable we are in our own skins.

I find it a bore more than an affront to have my personal features pointed out to me. I am petite and have small feet. If I had a new pair of shoes for every time someone has asked me if I have to shop in the children's shoe department (I don't), I'd have a collection to rival Imelda Marcos.