Studies suggest How may I help you officer? is the single most disarming thing to say and not What’s the problem? Studies suggest it’s best the help reply My pleasure and not No problem. Studies suggest it’s best not to mention problem in front of power even to say there is none.
Social Skills Training, Solmaz Sharif
In ancient Greece, theater actors wore masks called prosopon, which, in the most basic sense, means “face.” But the true reach of the word is much broader, for a prosopon is not merely a face but an extension and expression of the essence of a person. Etymologically, it seems to derive from the Greek pros, “to,” “toward,” or “at,” and ?pa, “face” or “eye.” A prosopon, then, is the means by which something is presented outward, to someone else. The Greeks considered a painter’s brush a prosopon, because she uses it to make concrete and visible to others what is interior to herself; a sculptor’s clay, or her mycelium, is a prosopon too.
A Living Requiem, Anahid Nersessian, NYRB.
