I have noticed this in several episodes - where Carter will be talking to someone and what he is SAYING will be agreeing with them, or saying yes about something but he will be shaking his head slightly from side to side, as if he is shaking his head "no."

I noticed this in the episode where he was talking to Lucy's mom and she said "Can I ask you something?" (when she asked him if it hurt to get stabbed) and Carter said "Sure" and he kind of started out nodding his head, but then shook it from side to side a little. He also did that recently in a TNT rerun where he was saying yes but slightly shaking his head from side to side.

Anyway, the point is that it's very subtle and it's almost like Noah is trying to make a contrast - like Carter is saying "yes" on the outside, but he doesn't really mean it. I think this is interesting because I took a class in college about understanding human communication and how sometimes people's verbal and non-verbal communication don't match up, and if they are not being completely honest it's best to watch the non-verbal because that is more involuntary and what they really mean will show up through that. Actions speak louder than words, so to speak.

-- Melanie (msintn@hotmail.com), July 23, 2000

Answers

Also, I think the other time I saw it was in the episode where Carter was talking to his grandparents after Chase's drug overdose but I don't remember exactly what he was saying.

Not to imply that Carter is a dishonest person, but I just think these head shakes sort of mean that, for whatever reason, he doesn't want to say what he really thinks.

-- Melanie (msintn@hotmail.com), July 24, 2000.

I noticed that, too! And the reason I noticed is that it reminded me of Johnny Depp in the movie "Ed Wood." For instance, a girl wants to be in Ed's/Johnny's movie and she says "Can't you just see me in the part?" He's shaking his head no because he wrote the part for his girlfriend, but he can't offend this girl because she claims she is going to help finance the picture, so he says, "You'd be perfect!" while he's shaking his head no.

-- Annie (GoldenLaur@aol.com), July 25, 2000.