People with Weak Critical Thinking Skills Usually Say These Phrases in Casual Conversation

The first sign was a brown stain on the ceiling of our youngest’s old bedroom. Tom found it when he went in there to put away a box of winter coats. He stood under it for a long time with his hands on his hips. Then he called me in and we both stood under it. That is how you know a thing is serious in our house. Two people standing in a quiet room looking up.

The roof was old. We knew that. What we did not know was what to do about it, how much it would cost, or who to believe. So we spent about six weeks finding out. We got estimates. We talked to neighbors. We talked to our kids. We talked to a man at the hardware store who had a lot of opinions. I kept notes on the backs of the estimate sheets because that was the paper I had.

Somewhere in week three I noticed something. The useful advice sounded a certain way, and the useless advice sounded a certain way too. The useless advice kept coming wrapped in the same handful of phrases. By the end I had a list. I am not an expert on roofs or on thinking. I am a woman who has been married more than thirty years and has sat through a lot of conversations. Here is what I heard.

Everybody knows that

Our neighbor across the street came over the first weekend. He had seen the ladder against the house and wanted to know what was going on. Tom told him about the stain. The neighbor nodded like a doctor and said we needed a metal roof. Tom asked why. The neighbor said, “Everybody knows metal lasts longer.”

Tom asked how long. The neighbor said a long time. Tom asked how long our shingles would last if we replaced them. The neighbor said not as long. Then he said, “Everybody knows that,” a second time, a little louder, as if the volume was the proof.

I wrote it down that night. Everybody knows. It turned out the metal roof cost a great deal more and two of the three roofers said it was not a good fit for our house. Maybe everybody knew that too. Nobody mentioned it.

When a person says everybody knows something, it usually means they have not checked.

I read it somewhere

My sister called to see how we were doing. I told her about the roof. She said she had read that you should never get a roof done in the spring because the shingles do not seal right in cool weather. I asked where she read it. She said somewhere. I asked if it was a roofing site or a news story or a comment under a recipe. She laughed and said she did not remember.

I asked the second roofer about it when he came. He said it was partly true and partly not. He said it depended on the product and the temperature, and he told me what temperature. He also said he had been putting on roofs in spring for twenty years.

My sister is a smart woman. I love her. But “I read it somewhere” is not a source. It is a memory of a source, and memories drift.

If you cannot say where you learned a thing, you do not really know it yet.

That is just common sense

The man at the hardware store told Tom that we should go with the cheapest estimate because all roofers use the same shingles anyway. Tom said one of the estimates listed a different brand and a thicker underlayment. The man waved a hand and said, “It’s all the same. That’s just common sense.”

Tom came home and told me about it over supper. He was a little annoyed. He said the man had not looked at the estimates. He had not looked at the roof. He had not looked at anything. He had a feeling and he called the feeling common sense so that nobody would ask him to explain it.

I have noticed that over the years. The phrase shows up right when the explanation should. It is a door that gets shut in your face while someone smiles.

Common sense is a fine starting point and a poor finish line.

We have always done it that way

The third roofer was the son of a man who had done work for us years ago. He was polite and he was fast with his tape measure. When I asked about the gutter guards he said his family had never bothered with them. I asked why. He said, “We’ve always done it that way.”

I liked him. I am not knocking him. But I asked him a second question. I asked if the houses he worked on had the same kind of trees ours has. We have a big maple that drops everything it owns into our gutters every October. Tom has cleaned those gutters every fall for as long as I can remember. He did not say anything, but I saw him look at the maple.

The roofer thought about it and said he would price the guards separately so we could decide. That was fair. He did not have to abandon his family’s way. He just had to admit it was a habit and not a law.

Tradition tells you what was done, not whether it was right.

It worked for my cousin

Our middle one called on a Sunday. All three of our kids were getting updates by then because the roof had become the family news. Our middle one said we should try a spray coating instead of replacing anything, because a cousin on the in-law side had done it on a garage and it was great.

I asked a few questions. How old was the garage roof. Was it leaking before. Was it a flat roof or a pitched one like ours. Our middle one did not know. The whole recommendation rested on one garage that none of us had seen.

I was gentle about it because that is my child and I remember being that age and being sure. But one example is one example. The cousin was not lying. The garage was probably fine. It just did not tell us anything about our house.

A story about one person is a story, not a pattern.

That is what they say

The neighbor two doors down stopped Tom on one of his Saturday morning rakes. She said she heard that insurance would not cover a new roof if the old one was past a certain age. Tom asked who told her. She said, “That’s what they say.”

Tom asked who they were. She did not know. She thought maybe it was on the news. Or maybe her brother-in-law. Or maybe both.

I called our insurance agent on Monday. It took four minutes. The real answer was more complicated than yes or no, and it was better for us than the rumor. I thought about how many people in our town might be carrying around that rumor like a stone in their shoe because “they” said so.

If you cannot name who they are, you have been handed gossip and not a fact.

I do not need to look it up

This one was Tom. I am including it because fairness matters and because he read this before I posted it and said I could.

He was sure the roof was from a certain year. He said he remembered because of something that happened with our oldest that same summer. I said we had the paperwork in the file cabinet and it would take two minutes. He said, “I don’t need to look it up. I know.”

He was off by four years. The roof was older than he thought. That changed what the roofers told us and what our insurance agent told us. Four years is a lot on a roof.

He took it well. He said his memory of the summer was right and his math was wrong. I said that was true. Then I went and got the folder, which I probably should have done before we called anyone.

Checking takes two minutes and being wrong can take a lot longer.

You cannot argue with that

A reader named Margaret H., who is 63 and lives in Grand Rapids, Michigan, wrote to me a while back about something her husband says. I thought about her letter a lot during these six weeks. She said that whenever he lands on an opinion he likes, he ends with, “You can’t argue with that.” She said it took her twenty years to realize it meant he did not want her to try.

I heard the same thing from the first roofer. He gave us a price and said it was the best in town and added, “You can’t argue with that.” Tom said we would get a couple more estimates. The man looked offended.

The second estimate was lower. So it turned out you could argue with that. You just had to go get another piece of paper.

When someone tells you a thing cannot be argued, that is usually the moment to ask one more question.

It is probably fine

The leak got worse during a rainy week. Tom put a pot under it and said, “It’s probably fine for now.” I said how do we know. He said because it was only a drip.

I went up to the attic with a flashlight. I am not fond of the attic. The insulation around the spot was soaked and there was a dark patch on the rafter. It was not fine. It was a drip because a lot of water was being soaked up before it got to the ceiling.

I came down and told him. He did not argue. He went up with his own flashlight, which I think was about seeing it for himself, and I understand that. He came down and said we needed to get moving. We did.

“Probably fine” is a wish with a nicer coat on.

I am just saying

Our oldest came for a weekend with the grandkids, and we sat around the kitchen table after the little ones were asleep. Our oldest looked at the estimates and said the middle one seemed high, and then said, “I’m just saying.”

I asked what was high about it. Our oldest said nothing specific, just that it seemed like a lot. I said all three seemed like a lot to me, because it is a roof, and roofs cost money. We laughed. But I noticed the phrase. It lets you drop a doubt on the table and then step away from it so nobody can ask you to pick it back up.

I do this too. I have said “I’m just saying” to Tom more times than I can count, usually about something I did not want to defend. It is a soft way to argue without arguing.

If you are just saying it, you should be able to say why.

Both of them are probably lying

The man at the hardware store got one more turn. Tom went back for a tarp. The man asked how the estimates were going. Tom said two of the roofers disagreed about whether the decking needed replacing. The man said, “They’re probably both lying to get the job.”

That is a tidy way to feel smart. If everyone is lying, you never have to figure out who is telling the truth. You get to stay home.

Tom asked the two roofers to each explain their reasoning. One of them walked him through it on the ladder and showed him a soft spot with his hand. The other had not gone up. That settled it. Nobody had to be a liar. One of them had just looked harder.

Deciding everyone is wrong is a way of not doing the work.

I already know what I think

Our youngest called from school near the end, when we had already picked a roofer. I was telling the whole story and I mentioned the gutter guards and the maple tree and how Tom had quietly come around to them. Our youngest said, “I could have told you that. I already know what I think about gutter guards.”

I asked when our youngest had last cleaned a gutter. There was a pause. The answer was never. Tom had always done it, every fall, before any of the kids were awake.

We had a good laugh about it. But it stuck with me. That phrase is the one I catch myself saying most. I already know what I think. It sounds settled and grown up. Half the time it means I decided a long time ago and have not looked since.

Knowing what you think is not the same as having thought about it lately.

What the roof taught me

The new roof went on in four days. The crew was tidy. Tom stood in the yard most of the time with his arms folded, which is how he supervises things that do not need supervising. When it was done I went into our youngest’s old room and stood under the spot where the stain used to be. The ceiling had been painted. It was just a ceiling again.

I kept my notes. Eleven phrases, written on the backs of three estimates and a flyer from the hardware store. None of the people who said them were foolish. Most of them were kind and wanted to help. I have said every one of those phrases myself, some of them during those same six weeks.

The difference between the advice that helped and the advice that did not was never how confident someone sounded. It was whether they had looked. The roofer who climbed the ladder beat the roofer who stayed on the ground. The insurance agent on the phone beat the rumor on the sidewalk. The folder in the file cabinet beat Tom’s memory, and he will tell you so himself if you ask him nicely.

So now I try to notice the phrases, mostly in my own mouth. When I hear myself say everybody knows, or it’s probably fine, or I already know what I think, I take it as a nudge to go get the flashlight.

Which of these phrases do you catch yourself saying the most?