Is that a compliment or an insult?

I was heading through the door of the hospital and was about to stand aside to let the lady behind me through before me, I still believe in manners even though I believe also in equality.  As I stepped aside she looked at me and said, "Age before beauty." How tempting it was to make a ripost about dirt and shovels or pearls and swine but I resisted and took the remark right on the chin. I feel it is so sad that with the acknowledgement that we are all equal that we can no longer be mannerable to one another.  It is an age thing I am sure.

Insulting others seems to be something that is sadly found to be amusing. I watch the trailers for some of the programmes produced for young people to enjoy and find myself in despair that it is found very funny to insult people and make fun of them. At the same time, we have campaign after campaign to stop the increasing amount of bullying taking place among young people and in schools and worse in the cyber media.

I remember my father giving me a very serious talking about both swearing and insulting. He told me there was no room in life for either if they were done just to cause hurt. I found it difficult to get my head around but he assured me that swearing was a fine art if it was done properly. I only ever once in all my years with him heard him doing it once, I learned that day what he had tried to teach me.

Insulting he said should never be used to cause harm because it did just become a form of bullying. You wisely and with wit, it could be a simple way to make a person think about their words or actions.

Not sure if I ever mastered the art as he did but I can say that I never insult to hurt or harm.

I was once attending the first evening of an art exhibition I had a few paintings in it. I was standing quietly when a rather pompous man, who wrote for the local paper,  came up to me and asked if I liked one of my paintings. I told him I was the artist. He made the comment made the comment that I must have some good brushes to get such detail. I looked at him and said, "You also must have a good word programme." I hope he later thought about that and got the message.

I often tried in a gentle way to let students know that I was not being fooled by the quality of their work. I could see and identify that large portions of it had been plagiarised from the internet cut and pasted together not very well. I thought often about how to do this but never came up with anything as good as Samuel Johnston who said, "Your manuscript is both original and good. But the parts that are original are not good, and the parts that are good are not original."

Another I learned and wished I had the brains to have concocted, "His argument is as thin as the homoeopathic soup made by boiling the shadow of a pigeon that had been starved to death."

I am sure some of you reading this can come up with better than I could but remember they are not for the sake of hurt or harm just a gentle lesson. 

My friend used gentle insults to help him while golfing. If at the ninth hole I was leading he would find some witty insult about my preaching that would put me off my game for the next few holes allowing him to take the lead. 

I wondered how I could stop this. it came to me from who knows where but it worked. I retorted after one of his remarks. "You are probably correct but your sermon reminded me of the mercies of God. I thought it would endure forever."

Have a marvellous day.