The Dolly Parton trick to handle people who talk down to you. Credit: Dorie Clark

You don't have to look like this. >> Dolly Parton has a trick to handle people who talk down to you. She used it on national television with one of the toughest interviewers in the world, and you can steal it the next time someone is patronizing to you. I'm a former presidential campaign spokesperson, and

I spent years coaching people to answer loaded questions. And this 1978 exchange with Barbara Walters is one of the best answers I've ever seen. Barbara grills Dolly to her face about her appearance and whether the right word for her family is hillbilly. Watch what Dolly does. >> You don't have to look like this. You're

very beautiful. You don't have to wear the blonde wigs. You don't have to wear the extreme clothes, right? >> No, it's it's certainly a choice. I don't like to be like everybody else. I've often made the statement that I would never stoop so low as to be fashionable. That's the easiest thing in

the world to do. >> Dolly, where I come from, would I have called you a hillbilly? >> If you had of, it would have been something very natural, but I would have probably kicked your shins or something. >> [laughter] >> No, actually >> But when I think of hillbillies, am I thinking of your kind of people?

>> you probably are, but we were very proud people, people with a lot of class. It was country class, but it was a great deal of class and uh most of um my people were not that educated, but they are very, very intelligent, good common sense, horse sense we called it. >> Notice what Dolly's not doing. She's not

denying she's a hillbilly. A lot of people probably think she is, and she's not getting mad at what could be read as an insult. Instead, Dolly keeps the word, but rewrites completely what it means. I call this move the label upgrade, and you can use it, too. To Barbara, hillbilly means backwards, but