{"id":68343,"date":"2014-03-19T16:30:00","date_gmt":"2014-03-19T20:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=68343"},"modified":"2014-03-19T16:42:13","modified_gmt":"2014-03-19T20:42:13","slug":"trading-places","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/03\/19\/trading-places\/","title":{"rendered":"Trading Places"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_68370\" style=\"width: 610px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/03\/btt.gif\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-68370\" class=\" wp-image-68370\" alt=\"btt\" src=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/03\/btt.gif\" width=\"600\" height=\"441\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-68370\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">An illustration from the Betsy-Tacy series.<\/p><\/div>\n<p>Repeating compliments to a third party is a bit like giving money: everyone\u2019s glad to get them, but the giving can be awkward.<\/p>\n<p>It was not always so. Time was, the passing on of compliments was so ritualized a part of life that the practice had a name: <i>trade-last<\/i>. <em>Merriam-Webster\u2019s<\/em> defines it as \u201ca complimentary remark by a third person that a hearer offers to repeat to the person complimented if he or she will first report a compliment made about the hearer,\u201d and dates the first recorded use of the term to 1891. <!--more--><\/p>\n<p>No doubt like many other readers, I first discovered the term in Maud Hart Lovelace\u2019s Betsy-Tacy books. To the uninitiated, these nine autobiographical novels follow the career of aspiring writer Betsy Ray from the age of five to twenty-three; the reading level changes to match Betsy\u2019s age (more or less). Thus they begin as children\u2019s books and then, when Betsy reaches high school in 1906, they become what we might nowadays call YA. In the four books that take place around Deep Valley High School, Betsy and her beloved \u201cCrowd\u201d frequently exchange \u201ctrade-lasts,\u201d or TLs, as they are known. It is customary, when given a TL, to return the favor at some point.<\/p>\n<p>The practice ends up playing a key part in one of the last books, <em>Betsy and the Great World<\/em>. Having quarreled with her love interest, Joe Willard, Betsy breaks the ice in a letter by repeating a compliment she has heard about his writing. \u201cI have a TL for you, Joe,\u201d she writes, setting the stage for the reconciliation that culminates in the final volume of the series, <em>Betsy\u2019s Wedding<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>If you keep your ears open, \u201cTL\u201d can also be found in old movies and the occasional radio show. I don\u2019t know when or why it fell out of fashion; it is an eminently useful and civilized practice that eliminates a lot of social difficulty and encourages the repetition of nice things. How much easier to say, \u201cI have a TL for you,\u201d then \u201cI heard something from someone I wanted to tell you,\u201d or some other inelegant setup. I can\u2019t imagine Betsy could have effected her reconciliation so breezily without the turn of phrase.<\/p>\n<p>I have been singlehandedly trying to bring \u201cTL\u201d back into circulation, but as with any innovation\u2014or reintroduction, I guess\u2014it is uphill work. No one knows what you\u2019re talking about, for one, and explaining the phrase takes way more time than just repeating a compliment (however inelegantly) would. It doesn\u2019t help that, when provoked, I tend to launch into lengthy synopses of the entire Betsy-Tacy series; and making matters worse, the letters <i>TL<\/i> apparently stand, these days, for toilet, top level, team leader, and true love. Oh, and last, there\u2019s the fact that, when questioned, I have absolutely no idea what <em>trade-last<\/em> means.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Repeating compliments to a third party is a bit like giving money: everyone\u2019s glad to get them, but the giving can be awkward. It was not always so. Time was, the passing on of compliments was so ritualized a part of life that the practice had a name: trade-last. Merriam-Webster\u2019s defines it as \u201ca complimentary [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":178,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13115],"tags":[5338,13246,687,4841,13245],"class_list":["post-68343","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-our-daily-correspondent","tag-betsy-tacy","tag-compliments","tag-language","tag-maud-hart-lovelace","tag-trade-last"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v25.4 (Yoast SEO v25.4) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>The History of \u201cTrade-Lasts\u201d and the Betsy-Tacy Series<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"March 19, 2014 \u2013 Repeating compliments to a third party is a bit like giving money: everyone\u2019s glad to get them, but the giving can be awkward. 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