And I have to chuckle at the suggestion of social skills training for my book club 'friend'... Yeah, only in upper middle class suburban American would it be suggested that someone needs social skills training because they said they "hated a book." This is totally something our elementary school would suggest if a kid said the same thing! But the inner city school? I think people there would just be thrilled that the person actually read the book and was up for discussing it even with his/her lack of "nicer" synonyms for "hate" at his/her disposal. And THAT is something I thin the article is definitely driving. It is becoming socially unacceptable to be negative or unpleasant at all tot he point that if some is at all - it needs to be "trained" right out of them.