A contrastive analysis of German & Cameroonian complimenting behavior is based on results of questionnaires, composed in German & French respectively, eliciting university students' formulation of compliments in seven specified situations (N = 45 & 118 respectively). Four tendencies are conspicuous in the resulting corpus: (1) the use of evaluative adjectives & intensifying adverbs, (2) the use of attitude verbs & metacommunicative verb groups, (3) the inclusion of forms of address, & (4) recourse to rhetorical figures, especially metaphors, similes, & hyperbole. Whereas German Ss, like the American Ss of similar studies, tend to fall back on stereotyped, unoriginal compliment formulas, apparently in an effort to avoid ambiguity, Cameroonians make abundant creative use of rhetorical & stylistic resources to express positive valuations. (LLBA, (c) CSA [2005]. All rights reserved)