YOU CALL THAT A COMPLIMENT?

A LITTLE PRAISE IS ALWAYS NICE-EXCEPT WHEN IT IS A TAD TOO HONEST!

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Did you used to be good-looking?

One day, if the stars are aligned and you’ve worked hard to do the right thing, you, too, might be lucky enough to receive a lovely compliment like the one Nancy Phelan, of Baraboo, Wisconsin, got a few years back. “When I was visiting my son, his fiancée and her children,” Nancy wrote to Reader’s Digest, “I made them a specialty of mine: breakfast pizza. After eating several slices, my eight-year-old future grandson leaned back in his chair and proclaimed, ‘This is so good, it makes my tongue dance!’ ”

Alas, life isn’t always so sweet. In fact, we sometimes get treated to a more stinging kind of praise—the backhanded compliment. We compiled some of the wittiest zingers you’ve heard or endured. It’s OK to laugh. We did.

I had joined an aerobics class made up mostly of older women like me. At first, it was difficult to follow all the steps, but after a few weeks I felt that I had a good grasp of the routines. One day, a fellow classmate stopped me to say, “I’ve been noticing you. You’re very coordinated.”

I couldn’t have been prouder. “Thank you,” I said.

“Yes,” she continued, “your shirt matches your pants, and your pants match your socks.” —Joyce Thomasson

As a wannabe musician, I took advantage of an opportunity to play with a local recorder group.

During a break in our first rehearsal, the woman sitting next to me, an accomplished musician, said, “You have a beautiful vibrato!”

I was basking in the glow of her praise when she added, “You’re not supposed to.”