If a woman's hair is of a certain length—in the vicinity of her chin, for example—and she wants to place a telephone to her ear, she will often tilt their head to one side so that her hair flips away and the phone can be slipped underneath and placed directly against her head.
Somewhere I have a picture of a former girlfriend performing this gesture while making a dinner reservation from our hotel room.
Although I have never discussed it with any of its users, I suspect this time-honored maneuver (I have seen it in movies of the 40s and 50s) is taken as much out of vanity as practicality. The goal is to hear better while preserving the condition of a quaffed head of hair. The result is a cocked-head movement reminiscent of a wolf turning to listen to a distant sound. The woman's eyes dull as she strains to hear the faraway person, and she continues to list a bit to one side until the conversation ends, at which point the woman pulls the phone straight downward, avoiding any contact with hair, and, finally, returns her head to an upright position.
I take a small measure of delight whenever I see this.
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