stubbornness is quite the thing in the derry family. if you haven’t experienced german stubbornness, then pray you never do, because there is no greater piece of stubbornness than a german stubborn person. 
grandma derry, despite the very irish last name, is 100% german. her house is spotless, she likes everything in its place, and man is she stubborn. 
except she doesn’t think so.
one time maybe 10 years ago she was visiting the wallace household (which, though very scottish in sound, was a very german household as well), and the topic of stubbornness came up. grandma sure didn’t see it as stubborn; she was determined. so a debate ensued as to whether or not determined was just a nicer way of saying stubborn. 
if you know the wallaces, you know we’re word people. of course there’s a giant dictionary just hanging out in the living room on a podium. (of course.) so i sauntered over to the dictionary and looked up the word determined and read the definition out loud.
one of the first words to describe determined? stubborn. then some more discussion about stubborn versus determined happened (it’s quite the meeting of the minds with a bunch of stubborn germans in the room), and so i looked up stubborn.
“why grandma!” i exclaimed. “your picture’s right here in next to stubborn in the dictionary!” 
then of course she did her little scrunchy frownie face, waved her hand, and said “oh you,” like she does when she’s been had. 
nothing like alleviating a little stubbornness with a little humor.