Does this statement about young girls strike you as odd?

[Lobsang]

@Skald_the_Rhymer

Commas are your friend. So are semi-colons. Hell, so are periods.

By contrast, sentences like the one I quoted are nobody’s friend.

I think some people need better reading skills. The quoted sentence is long, but perfectly fine.

[The_Bith_Shuffle]

@astro

That you feel this this common as dirt expression which is was often expressed by older men of a certain era as a compliment to female children needs to be deconstructed and teased into something inappropriate or an illumination of your father’s sexual inclinations is bizarre.

I’m 51 and I made a similar compliment to a 9 year old girl last night to some friends of mine. They were in the same restaurant and as I passed we struck up a conversation. She introduced her sister and her sister’s 9 year old daughter who were visting. She was a pretty little girl in an all American wholesome way, but what struck me in this little girl’s conversation was her usually mature poise. She was just a kid, but (at least in public) but when she spoke it was like talking with a 30 year old. I complimented her mother and aunt telling her she reminded me of a young Elizabeth Taylor in the poised way she spoke and carried herself. We chatted some more about current events and I left.

Now maybe I was mis-reading my friend and the kid’s mom, but they were literally beaming with pleasure when I told them this. To think that someone would be trying to disassemble my compliment for hidden psycho-sexual pedophilic urges says more about the person rooting for dirt in this situation than it does the compliment giver.

I got the message after the first fifty or so replies, of which about twenty percent actually implied that I have some problem of my own merely because I asked the question.

I didn’t know that it was normal to think about how physically attractive children will be when they’re older. I guess I was wrong.

[Skald_the_Rhymer]

@Lobsang

I think some people need better reading skills. The quoted sentence is long, but perfectly fine.

I disagree, but I don’t want to hijack this thread with an argument over writing style. Being an obsessive nincompoop, I opened this one instead.

[sunstone]

Not really odd at all. There are young folks who seem to be headed for great facial beauty - of both sexes. Now, if the girl was 16 and I (an older man) said “Wow, what a hottie!” there might be some reason for questioning my statement.

[Taomist]

@The_Bith_Shuffle

My father said something like “they have the most beautiful daughters. You can just tell that they’re going to grow up to be knockouts.”
But I just have to ask, does this statement strike any of you as being indicative of some sort of sexually twisted or immature mindset?

Nope. It’s something I would think myself, and I am about as straight a lady as you can get. And I am not going to hesitate to say it, either.

[Defero]

Definitely not sufficient evidence to conclude a sexual interest. Especially in older generations this is a generic compliment. Very commonplace. But one of the two of you was indeed thinking about pedophilia, this we do have 100% evidence of, and that was you. The question you might want to ask then is “why am I thinking about pedophilia?”. (Suggestions: media manipulation, political correctness fascism, victim consciousness, etc). Now if there is more evidence than just this comment, your question would not be so suggestive of a personal problem. For instance if he ever tried anything on you or someone else. But obviously your question implies that this is not the case.