8/19/2019 Lang1003 Week 4.1

1/13

The plus-sized comedian Dawn

French would be unlikely to

describe herself as a sex symbol,

but was she simply born at the

wrong time? “f had been

around when !ubens waspainting, would ha"e been

re"ered as a fabulous model,#

she once $uipped% “&ate 'oss?

(ell, she would ha"e been thepaintbrush%#

The plus-sized comedian Dawn

French would be unlikely todescribe herself as a sex symbol,

but was she simply born at the

wrong time? “f had been

around when !ubens waspainting, would ha"e been

re"ered as a fabulous model,#

she once $uipped% “&ate 'oss?

(ell, she would ha"e been the

paintbrush%#

1st: (open,present/future)

If I have enoughmoney, I will go to Japan.

2nd: (unreal, present)If I had enoughmoney, I would go to Japan.

3rd: (unreal, past)If I had had enough

money, I would havegone to Japan.

Condition

als

8/19/2019 Lang1003 Week 4.1

2/13

French may ha"e been talking

in )est, but her point is a seriousone% Do standards of beauty

change o"er time? *r are some

features uni"ersally accepted,

across the centuries and acrosscultures, as being uni"ersally

appealing?

French may ha"e been talking

in )est, but her point is a seriousone% Do standards of beauty

change o"er time? *r are some

features uni"ersally accepted,

across the centuries and acrosscultures, as being uni"ersally

appealing?

8/19/2019 Lang1003 Week 4.1

3/13

There are e"en some good

e"olutionary reasons why beauty

might be timeless% +ertain biological

features might signal health, fitness,and fertility the makings of good

mate and we should find these

features sexually attracti"e% et the

more biologists and psychologists

ha"e looked, the harder it has been tofind a purely biological basis for

beauty%

Has our notion of beautyalways been the same?

There are e"en some good

e"olutionary reasons why beauty

might be timeless% +ertain biological

features might signal health, fitness,and fertility the makings of good

mate and we should find these

features sexually attracti"e% et the

more biologists and psychologists

ha"e looked, the harder it has been tofind a purely biological basis for

beauty%

If I am riher, I will !ehappier. "he riher I am,

the happier I will!e.

If !iologists and

psyhologists haveloo#ed more, it has!een harder to $nda purely !iologial!asis for !eauty.

8/19/2019 Lang1003 Week 4.1

4/13

%onsider the apparentlyreeived wisdom that weprefer symmetrial, evenly!alaned features. "hesienti$ e&planation seems

sound: disease and stressduring hildhood ouldsu!tly in'uene the !odysdevelopment, reating an

insta!ility* that leads oneside to grow slightlydi+erently to the other. slightly lopsided fae shouldtherefore !e a sign of

physial wea#ness - ma#ing

nother way:

slightly lopsidedfae should therefore!e a sign of physialwea#ness, whih

ma#es them lessappealing as theparent of yourhildren.%an you $ndanother e&ample in

this paragraph

artiipialhrase

8/19/2019 Lang1003 Week 4.1

5/13

The problem had been that many of

the pre"ious experiments had asked

 )ust a small number of sub)ects to ratedifferent faces making it easier for

fluke results to )ump out% (hen .tefan

/an Dongen at the 0ni"ersity of

 1ntwerp conflated the results in a

large meta-analysis, he found the

effect almost disappears when you

consider enough people% n fact, facial

symmetry may not e"en say much

about your health% 1lthough pre"ious

research had found some e"idence for

the idea, a 2345 study took 6D scansof nearly 7,333 teenagers and $uizzed

them about their medical history% t

found that those with the

most symmetrical features had been

no fitter than the others%

Idiom

God helps those who helpthemselves.

助己者，天助之

n formal contexts, we can

use that  and those  as

substitutes meaning 8the

one9s:;<

nother e&ample ofpartiipial phrase.

8/19/2019 Lang1003 Week 4.1

6/13

=iologists had also hypothesised that

we prefer faces that epitomise the

8manliness; or 8femininity; of their

gender< the broad )aw of Jon Hammfor men> the delicate features of

Miranda Kerr   for women% 1gain, the

rationale was sound< bone structure

reflects the sex hormones pumping

through our blood, so they couldad"ertise a woman;s fertility and traits

like dominance in men important

considerations when picking a partner%

soand for that reason0therefore

so thatto e&plain or show a

purpose

8/19/2019 Lang1003 Week 4.1

7/13

 In some places, feminine-looking menrule over their masculinecounterparts

et most studies had only examined

(estern societies% (hen sabel .cott

at =runel 0ni"ersity, and colleagues,

decided to cast their net wider across communities in 1sia, 1frica,

.outh 1merica and !ussia, they found

a "ariety of preferences% n fact, it was

only in the most urbanised regions that

they found the strong attraction tomore masculine men and more

feminine women> in the smaller, more

remote communities, many women

actually preferred the more “feminine#

looking men%

void repeating a

word in a paragraph.

ne way is to writethe di+erent forms ofthe word.

8/19/2019 Lang1003 Week 4.1

8/13

The same goes for body shape% n the

(est, people may prize longer legs inwomen while preferring less “lanky

men#, yet the nomadic imba society

in @amibia ha"e the opposite tastes%

A"en (estern preferences seem to

ha"e shifted o"er time> =otticelli;s

/enus once the (estern ideal of

beauty has shorter legs, compared to

her body, than the desired shape for

models today%: 1nd although an

hourglass figure in women, and men

with broad, /-shaped shoulderstapering at the waist, are admired in

most places, the ideal extremes

depend on the society%

while !ut0

  ompared with the fatthat yet- used to add something

that  seems surprising

!eause ofwhat you have ust

said 

although (4 !ut) does not go with !ut* 

8/19/2019 Lang1003 Week 4.1

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Where starvation is a risk,heavier weight is moreattractive

Berhaps our choice of mate needs to be flexible,so we can choose the best partner based on our

current circumstances% “For example, in cultures

where star"ation is a real risk, preferences for

hea"ier weight in partners is expected because

those indi"iduals are most resistant to food

shortages,# says 1nthony Cittle at the 0ni"ersityof .tirling and indeed, this does seem to be the

case% =y the same token, someone who faces

higher risk of illness will be more primed to "alue

the signs that signal good health like facial

symmetry compared to those who are relati"ely

safe from infection% (hen dominance is "alued,meanwhile, women may also prefer men with

s$uarer chins and higher testosterone% “(e;"e

found, for example, that exposure to cues of

male-male competition, such as seeing men fight

each other, increases women;s preferences for

masculine male faces,# he says%

5edge words- to e&press aution

8/19/2019 Lang1003 Week 4.1

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.o although our concepts of beauty

may seem ethereal and timeless, they

may )ust be the direct product of our

immediate circumstances% t;s alsoworth noting the effect of conformity<

study after study has found that if you

hear or see that someone else is

attracted to someone, you are more

likely to fancy them yourself% n this

way, tastes for certain types of people

could spread throughout a population,

shaping our norms for what we

consider beautiful% “The benefit of this

is that you dont ha"e to learn

e"erything for yourself and can benefitfrom the experience of others,# Cittle

says% “(hat is interesting in modern

society is that social media can mean

this learning could be on a worldwide

scale%#

6ore

e&amples ofhedge words

8/19/2019 Lang1003 Week 4.1

11/13

 If somebody else dubs you attractive,the perception can be contagious

+onsider this recent experiment from

Eohns opkins +arey =usiness .chool

in =altimore% The researchers used a

dating website that allowed users to

rate random people% 1fter they had

made up their mind, some users were

shown the a"erage score from other"isitors% 1lthough there was no “right#

or “wrong# answers, the users soon

learnt which types were pro"ing more

popular, and started to score other

faces along similar lines% .oon,e"eryone;s taste had con"erged their

concept of beauty had shifted, )ust by

using the website% This is despite the

fact that it was completely anonymous

 there was no benefit to going with thestatus $uo%

8/19/2019 Lang1003 Week 4.1

12/13

t is easy to imagine how this kind of

herd beha"iour has benefited certain

celebrities% *n a smaller scale, you

can achie"e similar effects simply by

being seen with people who you could

potentially couple off with, such as

members of the opposite sex% *thers

will assume that you are already a hit,and follow suit%

8/19/2019 Lang1003 Week 4.1

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*ur attraction is also shaped by

familiarity< the more people see youwith a certain appearance, the more

attracti"e it can appear% n a time when

cosmetic surgery is becoming the

norm, this offers an important lesson%

nstead of changing your unusuallooks to suit the fashions of the time,

you could instead use your looks to

change the fashion%