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

(320 Posts)
ElderlyPerson Fri 10-Sept-21 11:50:22

Why do some people inform an adult person who is tall of the fact that he or she is tall? The person already knows of this fact.

thetallsociety.com/when-comments-go-too-far/

ElderlyPerson Mon 13-Sept-21 09:56:15

> A bigger box of cornflakes, coffee, soap powder is better value than a smaller one.

Not always!

I remember being in Tesco around 2005 wanting to buy some rice krispies and the smaller boxes were on special offer and the large ones were not and there was me trying to do mental arithmetic with the relative weights and the relative prices and on that day the smaller boxes were better value.

I have also know it happen with Andrex toilet rolls where sometimes two 9-roll packs is cheaper than one 16 roll pack.

Though bigger people do cost employers less per kilogramme to employ! smile

FannyCornforth Mon 13-Sept-21 10:07:57

Chewbacca

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

I think you do everyone here a grave injustice EP

I agree. It’s a rare person who doesn’t know about The Prisoner, Patrick McGooan (sp?) and Portmerion .
It was first aired four years before I was born, but it was often repeated during the 80’s.

If you enjoy books about dystopian futures, EP, then I imagine that you are a huge fan of The Machine Stops by E. M. Forster; in which he eerily predicts the internet, and our reliance upon it.
I first heard of it through a play on Radio 4 about twenty years ago. I was stunned by it.

Mollygo Mon 13-Sept-21 10:10:02

M0nica, in the beginning I think it was about not feeling good about being tall because people commented on it. It does seem to have wandered a bit, but sometimes that’s part of a discussion.
Comments about appearance, whether it’s something you can’t help, e.g. height or hair colour are to be deplored.
Not being able to buy clothes easily is an issue many people will sympathise with, regardless of their height. Who on GN hasn’t found that their size is the one that sold out before they got there, or noticed a lovely outfit that is only made in sizes 12 or below? My DH struggles to find the leg length he needs and my DGS has problems with school trousers because they think small waists like his, go with short children, which he isn’t.
Now we’ve discussed describing people by height, hair colour, clothes, job interviews and appointments not being given because of height (I’ve done a lot of interviews and height has never come into the discussion about the merits or suitability of the candidates.)
I’ve read about trying to identify one person in a crowd by what they are wearing, and how that wouldn’t work in a school assembly or other large gathering of uniformed personnel.
I’ve read “stories with names changed” that demonstrate the point being made.
We’ve been told about books to read and books that have not yet been read.
EP, most people you meet in the world are too polite to comment detrimentally on height, weight, or appearance. I hope, when you’re out and about more, you’ll find this out and be able to stop dwelling on the past. After your comment at 12:07 yesterday, “Ah, this thread has got top spot in Gransnet daily today” I’m wondering if you have another target in mind.

M0nica Mon 13-Sept-21 10:14:48

When a discussion reaches a stage where we mustn't teach children whether A is bigger than B , as if they cannot work it out for themselves, and to comment that A is bigger than B leads to them being hushed and told not to be rude, then the time has come to drop out before we are told that to try and work out how many angels can balance on the head of a pin is sizist.

ElderlyPerson Mon 13-Sept-21 10:25:37

M0nica

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?

Yes, the thread does shift around. To me that is part of following a discussion where it leads and not putting up a rigid "off-topic" wall if something interesting might be lost because of that.

Paragraph 2. I wrote about one case where I feel it happened. I did not claim it as general or even widespread. Yes, I suppose stereotyping is different from the original question, but it is related so not wildly off-topic.

Paragraph 3. Yes, thinking about it, you are correct.

Paragraph 4. Yes, that is a possible example of the result of stereotyping. As is presuming that a tall person is aggressive and violent.

Paragraph 5. Yes. I suppose the man thought something like "I need to employ the best person for the job" then asked me to say why I was the best person for the job. I suppose me replying to the literal question rather than the implied question says a lot about me. Yes, I know! Or at least I suspect it! smile

Paragraph 6. Nothing bothers me about being tall as such. I am happy being tall, I like being tall. The problems are because the built environment is in some ways a scale model world and I get treated rudely or nastily by some people because of my tallness and I am sometimes inconvenienced.

For example,, I once, in my twenties, went into a shop, selected an item, took it to the counter and handed it to the lady, perhaps in her fifties, behind the counter, for her to wrap and for me to pay. Just an ordinary transaction.

"You're very tall", she said.

Oh no I thought, not again.

But then she turned to some other women about her age nearby who were probably customers and said

"Viscount whatever's son was very tall, oh he could dance, I remember ..." and she started recounting something, bobbing my intended purchase up and down in her right hand as she spoke.

After quite a while I realised that I was not going to get served and I had other things to do so I quietly left. I turned to my right after I went out onto the pavement and I looked back through the shop window and there she was, talking away, a look of joy on her face as she spoke of whatever, still gently bobbing the item up and down in her hand. Presumably she finished sometime and perhaps realised that the would-be purchaser had gone.

FannyCornforth Mon 13-Sept-21 10:28:04

What an odd story!

ElderlyPerson Mon 13-Sept-21 10:33:35

M0nica

When a discussion reaches a stage where we mustn't teach children whether A is bigger than B , as if they cannot work it out for themselves, and to comment that A is bigger than B leads to them being hushed and told not to be rude, then the time has come to drop out before we are told that to try and work out how many angels can balance on the head of a pin is sizist.

I don't understand that. Could you possibly reword it please?

Mollygo Mon 13-Sept-21 10:36:33

M0nica you’re quite right about A and B but re the angels I found this, which completely sums up this thread for me.

ElderlyPerson Mon 13-Sept-21 10:37:41

ElderlyPerson

Ah, this thread has got top spot in Gransnet daily today, though with the following link text.

> Why do people tell other people this?

I was careful when I started the thread to include the word 'some' in the question.

Oh those syllogisms! smile

Media headlines often do not use 'some' when they should.

Here is the post to which Mollygo referred.

Silverbridge Mon 13-Sept-21 10:40:42

I was rather enjoying that the discussion was widening to discuss worlds, whether real or fiction or predicted, that reduce mankind to little more than prisoners - a grey, homogeneous, proletarian mass where there's no colour and variety where every thought and word is monitored.

We could sit swapping anecdotes for ever about encounters where physical attributes were made an issue. I think we answered the initial question long ago and concluded there is usually no malicious intent.

ElderlyPerson Mon 13-Sept-21 10:45:49

Mollygo wrote

> After your comment at 12:07 yesterday, “Ah, this thread has got top spot in Gransnet daily today” I’m wondering if you have another target in mind.

When I looked at Gransnet at one time yesterday I noticed an upsurge of posts and I wondered therefore if the thread had got a mention on Gransnet daily. So I checked my emails. Sure enough, top spot, yet mangled, omitting the word some that I had taken great care to include and not mentioning the key factor relating to the thread. So the title stated was very misleading as to what the thread is about.

ElderlyPerson Mon 13-Sept-21 10:49:18

Silverbridge wrote

> I was rather enjoying that the discussion was widening to discuss worlds, whether real or fiction or predicted, that reduce mankind to little more than prisoners - a grey, homogeneous, proletarian mass where there's no colour and variety where every thought and word is monitored.

So am I.

ElderlyPerson Mon 13-Sept-21 10:50:53

FannyCornforth

What an odd story!

Yet entirely true.

It really did happen.

Silverbridge Mon 13-Sept-21 10:54:03

Do you have Britbox, EP? All episodes of The Prisoner from 1967 are there.

Are you planning to read some Huxley and other futuristic writers?

MerylStreep Mon 13-Sept-21 10:55:21

ElderlyPerson
You used the word literal above.
This from the definitions.
Tending to construe words in the strict sense or in an unimaginable way; matter of fact prosaic
Would you say that there is something in your makeup/ character/ personality that Leeds you to not change your way of thinking?

ElderlyPerson Mon 13-Sept-21 11:01:08

FannyCornforth

Chewbacca

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

I think you do everyone here a grave injustice EP

I agree. It’s a rare person who doesn’t know about The Prisoner, Patrick McGooan (sp?) and Portmerion .
It was first aired four years before I was born, but it was often repeated during the 80’s.

If you enjoy books about dystopian futures, EP, then I imagine that you are a huge fan of The Machine Stops by E. M. Forster; in which he eerily predicts the internet, and our reliance upon it.
I first heard of it through a play on Radio 4 about twenty years ago. I was stunned by it.

Actually I have tended to avoid dystopian works, I much prefer reading about utopian ideas.

I had never known of The Machine Stops until you mentioned it, so that leads me off on another search on the Internet. Thank you for bringing it to my attention.

This thread is producing information that I never suspected when I started it - which is wonderful.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Machine_Stops

So thanks to you I now know more than I did earlier today.

FannyCornforth Mon 13-Sept-21 11:04:44

Oh you will love it EP, I’m sure!

ElderlyPerson Mon 13-Sept-21 11:08:05

Silverbridge

Do you have Britbox, EP? All episodes of The Prisoner from 1967 are there.

Are you planning to read some Huxley and other futuristic writers?

I don't have Britbox. I had not known of it until it was mentioned in this thread.

As to the books I shall try to have a look at that possibility. I would need to be able to obtain the texts. I do tend to prefer optimistic imagined futures, but I appreciate that to have good one needs eternal vigilance.

ElderlyPerson Mon 13-Sept-21 11:16:25

MerylStreep

ElderlyPerson
You used the word literal above.
This from the definitions.
Tending to construe words in the strict sense or in an unimaginable way; matter of fact prosaic
Would you say that there is something in your makeup/ character/ personality that Leeds you to not change your way of thinking?

I can and do change my way of thinking, but being literal and taking what is said as literal is an integral part of being me.

A Tesco delivery driver, pre-pandemic came here, not one of the regulars. I am somewhat slow of gait doing things. At one stage he said "Take your time, I've got all day" and I replied, quite naturally "Thank you. That's very considerate of you." as I had taken him literally. It was only afterwards that I wondered if he had not meant it literally. I discussed it with friends and they told me their opinions of the matter.

ElderlyPerson Mon 13-Sept-21 12:17:50

Off-topic but related.

The height of safety railings on balconies. Sometimes, they would be useless for protecting a tall person.

Going wider and off-topic, but not long ago there was a feature of a report by a woman where she drew to public attention that the rules (I don't know if it is law or what) for testing of seat belt designs were such that the required test of a seat belt designed for a pregnant woman was for it to be tested using a mannequin of an average size man.

ElderlyPerson Mon 13-Sept-21 12:46:32

Mollygo wrote

> (I’ve done a lot of interviews and height has never come into the discussion about the merits or suitability of the candidates.)

That is good to know.

I did read about a woman who was told by a chain store that they would have hired her but they did not have a uniform that would fit her. But that was not height. I like to think that if I had been in charge I would have got one made specially.

I wonder if height is - or could become by case law - protected under the Equality Act.

MerylStreep Mon 13-Sept-21 12:55:35

ElderlyPerson
So you don’t understand sarcasm?
Did it not cross your mind that no Tesco driver had all day at the height of the pandemic?

MerylStreep Mon 13-Sept-21 13:11:47

ElderlyPerson
Are you aware of this site?

www.tallclub.co.uk/

Callistemon Mon 13-Sept-21 13:19:07

A Tesco delivery driver, pre-pandemic came here, not one of the regulars. I am somewhat slow of gait doing things. At one stage he said "Take your time, I've got all day" and I replied, quite naturally "Thank you. That's very considerate of you." as I had taken him literally. It was only afterwards that I wondered if he had not meant it literally. I discussed it with friends and they told me their opinions of the matter

EP if he had meant it kindly then that was the right answer.

If, however, he meant it sarcastically because he was in a rush then yes, you gave the right answer again! He shouldn't have been sarcastic to a customer and you would have taken the wind out of his sails by thanking him.

Callistemon Mon 13-Sept-21 13:20:55

ps I must say our delivery drivers, Tesco and Waitrose, are always lovely