European Stars And Stripes (Newspaper) - February 17, 1986, Darmstadt, Hesse Monday february 17, 1986 the stars and stripes Page 17 the Art of verbal self defense Bymark Schwed United press International t Here s a woman living in a underground House Ina Kansas who can teach the Meek and verbally oppressed How to rip their enemy s eyes out with the lashing of a Tongue. Got a bum Boss Pushy co workers guilt producing Mother condescending husband nagging wife Wise Mouth kids psycho linguist Suzette Haden Elgin who lives in the underground House can teach you to atop them in their tracks with a few Well chosen words. Elgin wrote her first Book the gentle Art of verbal sell detente five years ago and it is just now starting to take off. I wrote is Book for the abused waitress at the truck Stop explained Elgin an applied psycho linguist lecturer associate professor of linguistics at san Erma Bombeck Diego state University and science fiction novelist. Boy did i get trashed. My colleagues really trashed this she nicknames her second Book the Moron Book because the title is More on the gentle Art of verbal self defense. A third Book is called getting sent Only. Syn tonics being the science of language Harmony. Essentially the books instruct the Reader How to become a Black Belt in the Art of verbal self defense. No four letter words Here. No hitting on subjects such As sexual prowess height or ape like intellect. And above All no dirty fighting. Elgin teaches How to Cut through the cussing insults Low blows emotional harangues and other assorted verbal assaults to get to the meat of the matter at hand. Apparently the advice it helping. More than 75,000 books have been sold mostly through mall order. People write and Tell me ii it had t been or you i d have killed myself gotten a divorce lost my Job or hit my kid Elgin said. In her Book the author details eight types of verbal attacks and How to fight them the four principles of verbal self defense from knowing you Are under attack to following through with a counterattack and the five personalities and How they communicate. You know you re the victim of verbal abuse when someone starts out a sentence with you id lot but it s not so obvious when someone says sweetheart even you can see the logic in then there s really Subtle abuse like this husband to wife Exchange husband if you really love me you would t waste so much wife i Don t waste Money. Do you have any idea what food costs these the wife loses this one because she skipped Over the real Challenge that she does t love her Man. A winning response would be of course i love you Honey. I try not to waste Money. How can we spend less this Way. The fight does not escalate and the real Issue is being dealt with on a Friendly basis. For folks who Are constantly fighting in the verbal Arena the Book teaches them How to Stop and falling that How to scuttle the abuse. That s what this system is All about learning How to interpret data and adjust to it in such a Way that you never have to fight Elgin said. You reach a Point where you re never going to find yourself in a verbal confrontation because you know How to avoid it and How to do so honorable she said. I Don t mean weasel Long out of them. It s knowing How to take the confrontation a the Ann Landers and dear Abby of verbal abuse people Call Elgin Day and night with their troubles or Send her pathetic mall about being verbal victims. They say i have been miserable All my life and now i know Why,1 " Elgin said. Recently the american College of emergency physicians gave her the wonderful experience of addressing 191 doctors on communicating with patients. I sat them Down for three. Hours and told them people Don t sue them for mistakes. They sue for malpractice of the Mouth she said. Then came the from boardroom reports a Classy newsletter for businessmen with the sceptical writer asking what is there in this for my Macho executives i talked Money. People who do what you want them to do because they want to do it for you do it a lot better she said. It saves Elgin believes verbal abuse is rampant because it someone who is Good to it is just like an alcoholic or drug addict. They get a lot of attention. Take the most stereotypical abusive spouse Well Call it a husband. He likes to fight. He likes his wife pleading with him to Tell her what she s done. He likes All this interaction and it is something that feeds on itself. It s part of the epidemic of family despite the wide Public attention granted to child abuse spouse abuse and other abusive behavioural problems there is Little on verbal abuse. For every person who just got a fist in the face there Are hundreds who just took a verbal blow to the gut she says in her Book. To expose the problem of verbal abuse Elgin founded the american syn tonics association which is trying to set up support groups around the country. We want people to have a place where they can go in and say i am a verbal victim and have nobody laugh Elgin said. D Oes anyone still remember what a dress code was i did t think so. As recent As the late 50s you could not appear in certain place sunless you were dressed according to their rules. Some of these places required jackets ties dresses and there were even signs that read women wearing pants will not be and then there came a plague of informality that was to last 30 years. We saw running shoes at wed dings Halter dresses in Church jeans at the opera hot pants on air planes and obscene to shirts in schools. Freedom of fashion had never been so decadent. I think it s coming to an end. Recently a couple was forced from boarding a plane because they were wearing logging suits a Teon Ager was sent Home from school Tor wearing shorts. And a government office is requiring that women clerks Wear certain color of blouses on certain Days of the week to make the office More professional. The fall from conformity was a gradual sort of thing. First the ties came off hats and gloves became obsolete pantyhose did away with the girdles then Slacks cancelled out the need for pantyhose jackets became unstructured bras became expendable and wrinkled clothes became a Way of life. You travel Light in the fast Lane. Having Rule is going to take a bit of getting used to. I be sorta adjusted to my son wearing Panama tops to a movie and my husband buying new jogging shoes to Wear on vacation. The poor slobs barely know what to get dressed up for. They re not alone. We be got a group of elderly women who have a closet full of polyester Slack suits. It s not going to be easy to get their Knees together again. We be got a generation of kids who Are welded into jeans and May have to have them surgically removed. And Don t forget Sonny Crockett from Miami vice who thinks you have to have a permit to carry a Necktie. I Call it the revenge of the baby Boomers. My theory is they have never forgiven us for All those boiled pacifiers starched bibs and bleached diapers. For making them Wear sunday clothes that scratched and rustled. Those snowsuits that forced them to grow kidneys the size of basketballs. The hard shoes that never Bent or cracked. The hats that made their Heads sweat and the plastic clip on ties that made them look cute. The pendulum is on its Way Back. Every Day the women in business suits carrying attache cases be come More visible along with the Young men wearing vests and wet leather shoes. In another 10 years there will be no More Cut off shorts being worn under graduation gowns no More weddings on surfboards and no More signs in supermarkets no Bare feet Al and to think this is the same generation we used to Tell go Wash your face and they d reply where Are we going c a lot Angilu Tomii syndic to
