Friday, August 12, 2005

Is she a chav or an angel….

The Oxford English Dictionary came out with some interesting statistics this week. In English you have many more ways of insulting someone than praising them, and if you are a man you have more word choices for describing an attractive woman, than a woman has for describing a handsome man. There are apparently some 350 words in the dictionary that are insulting while there are only 40 words that could be considered complimentary. There are 50 words to describe an attractive woman and only 20 ways to describe a good looking man.

In the latter situation, I don’t think it is because there are so few good looking men around, I think it is that men are just more imaginative (out of desperation) when describing the female of the species, whilst women just couldn’t care less.

By the way, if you don't know what a chav is (I didn't but likely every UK resident does) , it is a "young lower-class person typified by brash and loutish behaviour and the wearing of [real or imitation] designer clothes".

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