Graciousness 2: The Art Of Cover

When I studied linguistics I learned that speech errors can be an interesting source of data, because it turns out that even our mispronunciations and grammatical screw-ups follow certain rules embedded in our minds. If I garble the word "shrug" in rapid speech, for example, I might say "shug", "sug", or "shruk", but probably not "srug" because "sr" does not exist in English as a word-initial consonant cluster, and so my brain does not have easy access to it.

I heard about a professor who captured on tape a fascinating error from a native speaker of some foreign language, and he played it over and over for his students so they could hear the crucial mistake and see the point it illustrated. But about the 5th time he pressed the "play" button, the native speaker, who was present, jumped up and ran out of the room crying. What was for others a mere linguistic novelty was for her a grievous shame, and hearing it again and again in front of everybody was unbearable. We were all warned from that incident, "Be careful not to replay people's mistakes in front of others."

There is a principle of graciousness to be gleaned from that warning. We all have things that cause us shame - stupid comments we make, sins we commit, errors in judgment we manifest. Graceless people call attention to those things and replay them in front of everybody, while gracious people cover them up for us. Gracious people master the appropriate use of the passive voice, saying things like, "I'm afraid this got broken" rather than, "Lundquist dropped this." They can speak in exquisite generalities, saying, "There may have been some confusion about directions" rather than, "Paul got lost again." They plant us in the protection of the plural, saying, "Our team shooting percentage was a little low" rather than, "Preacher bricked a bunch of shots."

St. Peter wrote, "Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins" (1 Peter 4:8). It also covers over (by declining to mention) our lisp, our limp, our lack of height or surplus of weight, the ravages of our advancing years, or any of those bodily features of ours (we know them already!) that the opposite sex might find unappealing.

A heartbreaking scene from The Elephant Man shows Doctor Frederick Treves displaying the misshapen Joseph Merrick before his medical colleagues, outlining in detail every ghastly bulge of bone and warp of flesh. Only later does Treves come to understand that Merrick is a man of sensitivity and not a lab specimen, and that the manner in which he had put him on display was cruel. It brings to mind something my brother once said - though I'm afraid I can only remember five words of it, and I forget completely the context and story they were attached to. They are good words, and can be attached to many stories, and those who want to be gracious will often find them useful. They are, "Let him have his dignity."