EVERY ONE HAS HEARD people quarreling. Sometimes it sounds funny
and sometimes it sounds merely unpleasant; but however it
sounds, I believe we can learn something very important from
listening to the kinds of things they say. They say things like
this: "Howíd you like it if anyone did the same to you?"--
ĎThatís my seat, I was there first"--"Leave him alone, he isnít
doing you any harm"--"Why should you shove in first?"--"Give me
a bit of your orange, I gave you a bit of mine"--"Come on, you
promised." People say things like that every day, educated
people as well as uneducated, and children as well as grown-ups.
Now what interests me about all these remarks is that the man
who makes them is not merely saying that the other manís
behavior does not happen to please him. He is appealing to some
kind of standard of behavior which he expects the other man to
know about. And the other man very seldom replies: "To hell with
your standard." Nearly always he tries to make out that what he
has been doing does not real