# Things You Should Avoid Saying To Your Vertically Challenged Neighbors **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [April 16, 2005, 7:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-you-should-avoid-saying-to-your-vertically-challenged-neighbors/299661 "2005-04-16T19:51:26Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![whiterabbit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/cab0a1/32.png) [@whiterabbit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/whiterabbit)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2005, 4:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-you-should-avoid-saying-to-your-vertically-challenged-neighbors/299661/61 "2005-04-20T16:21:58Z")
Some of my best friends have been granola crunching hippies. I’m not saying Dopers are perfect by any means. But I think a lot of us are at least trying. ---
**Author:** ![JohnBckWLD](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/d6d6ee/32.png) [@JohnBckWLD](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnBckWLD)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2005, 4:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-you-should-avoid-saying-to-your-vertically-challenged-neighbors/299661/62 "2005-04-20T16:41:03Z")
> [@WhyNot](#): > > **There (are) martyrs everywhere, even on the Dope** I can’t recall the last time I read such a simple - yet profound - statement. To me, that one sentence alone made this thread worthwhile. People here constantly mention the fact they come to these boards to _fight ignorance_…both theirs and others. Imagine how much nicer it would be if we were all able to focus some of our high powered perception at ourselves and weed-out that _little_ bit of martyrdom we all possess. ---
**Author:** ![Punoqllads](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/d2c977/32.png) [@Punoqllads](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Punoqllads)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2005, 5:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-you-should-avoid-saying-to-your-vertically-challenged-neighbors/299661/63 "2005-04-20T17:27:42Z")
> [@whiterabbit](#): > > This is, frankly, overall enough of a hassle without it being, at least in some circles, totally socially acceptable to pick on that funny-looking midget over there. Ooh, look, she’s buying groceries. What a hoot! So what IS so damned funny? I’ve heard fat people say they’re the last ones it’s okay to pick on, and while I feel for them, that’s not right. I’ve heard a few midget jokes on Comedy Central that were mean-spirited enough to count as hate speech if they’d been racially based. (I tend to change the channel when they start in on that instead of sitting there and getting pissed off. So does my boyfriend, now.) This bugs the hell out of me. I went to see Shrek, and the story is supposed to have the moral that you shouldn’t judge people by how they look on the outside. So what do they do for humor? Short jokes. They do other things for humor value, sure, but whenever the bad guy comes on screen they have to do some sort of “Isn’t it funny that he’s short?” thing, and did so sometimes when he was off-screen, too. The sad thing is that people often don’t realize that they’re doing it. It’s just that it’s so socially ingrained that this is acceptable, just as a couple of decades ago racial denigration was considered acceptable. And the worst thing about it is that, even pointing out their hypocrisy – no matter how politely I do it – people seem to treat it like, “Oh, you’re just trying to compensate.” (I’m short, too – 5’). And as someone pointed out a while ago, these sorts of social respones were noted in an ABC program: [http://abcnews.go.com/2020/story?id=123853&page=2](http://abcnews.go.com/2020/story?id=123853&page=2) > [@](#): > > Another [woman] said she’d have considered [dating] the shorter men, if the taller men had been described as “child molesters.” ---
**Author:** ![Skywatcher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skywatcher/32/254_2.png) [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2005, 5:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-you-should-avoid-saying-to-your-vertically-challenged-neighbors/299661/64 "2005-04-20T17:58:03Z")
> [@Zsofia](#): > > Likewise, I’d expect a guy you called “tall” to be, I dunno, maybe 6’2". If he in fact was in danger from ceiling fans… [Lurch] You rang? [/Lurch] I’m 6’2" and in danger from low-hanging ceiling fans/light fixtures. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Larry\_Mudd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/f14d63/32.png) [@Larry\_Mudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Larry_Mudd)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2005, 7:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-you-should-avoid-saying-to-your-vertically-challenged-neighbors/299661/65 "2005-04-20T19:37:42Z")
> [@20/20](#): > > Another [woman] said she’d have considered [dating] the shorter men, if the taller men had been described as “child molesters.” :eek: Sometimes I think the height bias thing might have some actual benefits, on a personal level, in that it weeds out a lot of astonishingly stupid people from the pool of available dates. Jesus. Of course, this bit catches my attention: > [@](#): > > Women will take just about any shortcoming in a man, except in the height department, according to Andrea McGinty, who founded the San Diego-based dating service It’s Just Lunch. :dubious: For another look at height relative to dating, [check this out.](http://www.shortsupport.org/Research/personals.html) The methodology of their survey is obviously far from perfect, but I think it’s at least a bit more statistically significant than an involving experiment described as involving “several” people. It’s an analysis of women’s stated preferences on Yahoo Personals. It is interesting (to me) to note that women from English-speaking countries (excepting Australia) demonstrate a significantly higher level of preference for taller men. I would have prefered it if they supplied data on the _average_ height of each country’s sampled women, rather than the _median_, because I think that would lend more insight as to what degree their choices may have been influenced by the height relative to them personally. The data in the second table does seem to suggest that, in the United States, at least, average-sized women are considerably less likely to choose a man that is the same size or smaller than them than women from other countries. Necessary caveat: the numbers jump around so much at either extreme of the spectrum that it seems clear that the sample size is too small to draw any conclusions. Anyway, I’m curious about how you guys feel about Randy Newman’s song, _Short People_. When that song came out, I developed a serious hate-on for Mr. Newman. (Partly because I was too young to have much of an understanding about irony, or any familiarity with the concept of “narrative voice,” and partly because mean kids with similar blind spots constantly used the song to taunt me. And it was on the radio _all the time._) Now that I’ve grown up, I really love that song. A great lampoon of prejudicial attitudes in general and height bias in particular. It’s kind of sad that, when people trot out verses of it, they always seem to overlook that _one_ part: “Short people are just the same as you and I - All men are brothers until the day they die.” Funny old world. Oh, and an afterthought (relating to my particular bugbear again, sorry) for **neutron** and **Blalron** : A more concise way of explaining why the negativity of “small” in the examples you’ve given is qualitively different from the negative connotation of “short” is to use a [thesaurus](http://thesaurus.reference.com/search?q=deficient) instead of context sentences which bring a subjective meaning to the words in question. Synonyms for “deficient”: > [@](#): > > amiss, bad, damaged, defective, exiguous, faulty, flawed, found wanting, impaired, imperfect, inadequate, incomplete, inferior, infrequent, injured, insufficient, lacking, marred, meager, not enough, outta gas, rare, scant, scanty, scarce, second fiddle, second string, **short** , shy, sketchy, skimpy, third string, unassembled, unequal, unfinished, unsatisfactory, wanting, weak You will note that there is not a single word in that list, (apart from “short,” of course,) that is used to denote simply “small in size.” Any descriptive word can be used in contexts that are negative. “A big tumour,” “a big headache,” “a big stink,” etc, in these contexts, bigger is not better. Even qualities that are mostly positive can be applied in ways that are negative, if they are inappropriate to the subject. This doesn’t mean that all adjectives carry negative connotations in-and-of-themselves. If **Blalron** ’s example of “a small penis” strikes one as negative, it’s because of a preexisting value. Hell, it’s not even necessarily negative. A wee Google confirms that it’s not unheard of for someone to [prefer a small penis](http://www.google.ca/search?hl=en&safe=off&q=%22prefer+a+small+penis%22&btnG=Search). How many people [prefer a short penis](http://www.google.ca/search?hl=en&safe=off&q=%22prefer+a+short+penis%22&btnG=Search)? Uh, _zero._ And that, (I promise) is the last I will say on the subject. ---
**Author:** ![SkeptiJess](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ea666f/32.png) [@SkeptiJess](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SkeptiJess)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2005, 1:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-you-should-avoid-saying-to-your-vertically-challenged-neighbors/299661/66 "2005-04-21T01:36:01Z")
> [@](#): > > It’s this. Wendell, you are very short, no doubt. But functionally there’s a real difference between somebody about your height and above and mine. … It’s constant. Virtually everywhere I go I have trouble using or reaching something. It’s to the point where I don’t think about it most of the time. It’s perfectly normal for me. This was what I was thinking, too – there’s short, and then there’s really, _really_ short. And sometimes we need a word for the really-really short. When it became obvious that my daughter was quite short and not getting much taller, I was pretty concerned. My fear was that she would end up being so short that her shortness would amount to a second disability (she has Cerebral Palsy and walks with crutches, BTW). Accessibility is already an issue for her – being really, really short would just have magnified the accessibility problems. As it turned out, she managed to squeak up to 4’8" (she is now almost 18) – short, but not really-really short. I often have to talk to people about her her disability, or write it on forms, etc. and, if she was really-really short, I’d need to talk to people about that too and it would be nice to have a word to use. Example – Doe is a junior in high school and has been selected to go to Virginia Girl’s State this year, which means a week living in a college dorm. When we filled out the forms I put down “disabled, walks with crutches” and they knew to call me up and discuss her needs. If she was **whiterabbit** ’s size, I’d have needed to mention that as well – “Really, really short, disabled, walks with crutches” would’ve worked, I guess, but a _word_ would have made it easier. I guess I’d use Little Person if I had too – at least it’s been in use for a long time – but it does sound a bit off. Too bad there isn’t a better answer. ---
**Author:** ![Larry\_Mudd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/f14d63/32.png) [@Larry\_Mudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Larry_Mudd)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2005, 4:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-you-should-avoid-saying-to-your-vertically-challenged-neighbors/299661/67 "2005-04-21T04:33:34Z")
> [@Jess](#): > > “Really, really short, disabled, walks with crutches” would’ve worked, I guess, but a word would have made it easier. “Homunculus” has been adopted by some as a replacement for “midget.” (ie; very very small but perfectly proportioned.) I can’t say that I think it’s any better than “midget.” Partly because it carries some bizarre connotations relating to curious alchemical operations involving sperm and warm dung mixed in an hermetically sealed environment, but mainly because the word itself sounds weird – like something you’d find growing between your toes. (Or in an alchemist’s retort full of warm dung and spunk.) ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2005, 1:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-you-should-avoid-saying-to-your-vertically-challenged-neighbors/299661/68 "2005-04-21T13:33:40Z")
Jess writes: \> If she was whiterabbit’s size, I’d have needed to mention that as well - \> “Really, really short, disabled, walks with crutches” would’ve worked, I guess, \> but a word would have made it easier. I would think that in that case, regardless of whether you used any particular word, the important thing would be that you give an exact height. That’s the thing that would be most useful to someone who was figuring out whether the accomodations were acceptable. Any other words you could have used, even medical terminology, would have been less useful. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-you-should-avoid-saying-to-your-vertically-challenged-neighbors/299661.md?page=3)