Unit 3 How Do You Describe Them All?

Describing Someone In English

There are many ways to talk about physical appearance.

Age

My grandfather is quite old. In fact, as he has a pension, he is an old age pensioner, or a senior citizen.

His daughter, my aunt, is 55, and middle-aged. She has three sons. One is a young adult, at 24 years of age, and the other two are both teenagers. They are 16 and 17. My sister also has two children – one toddler who is a two-year old, and a baby who is 6 months old.

Build

People are built in all shapes and sizes. There are those who are fat and overweight. Some people are extremely overweight and are obese. Other people are naturally slim, but others look have absolutely no fat on them and are thin, or skinny.

Personally, I am stocky – small, but well-built. My father is tall and lean – with very little fat. My sister is short, but wiry – she is quite thin, but muscular. Both my brothers are athletic and well-proportioned. My mother looks like a 1940's film star. She is curvaceous, with an hour-glass figure.

My grandfather is fit for his age and takes plenty of exercise. He doesn't want all his muscles to get flabby.

Colouring

My sister is an English rose – she has fair hair and fair skin. She doesn't tan easily and has to be careful in the sun. My mother is blonde, also with a fair complexion. I am a red-head – with red hair. Like many other people with a pale complexion, I get freckles from the sun – small brown dots on my face and arms. In contrast, my father has dark-brown hair and he is quite dark-skinned. You are born with a colour – white or Caucasian, black or Asian. People whose parents are of different ethnic origin are mixed-race. Southern Europeans are sometimes described as Mediterranean.

Face

Faces, like build, vary a lot. Some people have oval faces – their foreheads are much wider than their chins. Other people have heart-shaped, square or round faces.

Features also vary. My grandfather has bushy eyebrows (he has lots of hair!), a hooked nose and high cheekbones. His eyes are large and set quite far apart. My mother has a broad nose, which she hates, as she prefers narrow noses. But she is lucky to have even or regular teeth. My sister corrected her crooked teeth by wearing a brace which straightened them. She has rosy cheeks, small ears and a snub nose, which goes up at the end.

I have long, curly hair, though my sister is the opposite, with short, straight hair. Her hair is fine and doesn’t weigh very much, but mine is thick and heavy. My mother’s hair is wavy – in between straight and curly. It’s cut in a boband she also has a short fringe, where it is cut horizontally across her forehead. My father is losing his hair – in fact he is going bald, which makes him very sad. My brother looks like he is going to lose his hair too – it is receding.

Nationality

Nationality is the legal relationship between an individual human and a Nation state. Nationality normally confers some protection of the individual by the state, and some obligations on the individual towards the state. What these rights and duties are vary from country to country. It differs technically and legally from citizenship, although in most modern countries all nationals are citizens of the state and all citizens are nationals of the state.

Nationality affords the state jurisdiction over the Person and affords the person the protection of the state. The most common distinguishing feature of citizenship is that citizens have the right to participate in the political life of the state, such as by voting or standing for election. The term national can include both citizens and non-citizens. By custom, it is the right of each state to determine who its nationals are. Such determinations are part of nationality law. In some cases, determinations of nationality are also governed by public international law—for example, by treaties on statelessness and the European Convention on Nationality.

Individuals may also be considered nationals of groups with autonomous status which have ceded some power to a larger government, such as the federally recognized tribes of Native Americans in the United States. Spanish law recognises the autonomous communities of Andalusia, Aragon, Balearic Islands, Canary Islands, Catalonia, Valencia, Galicia and the Basque Country as "nationalities" (nacionalidades).

Profession

            Many kinds of profession you can do based on your qualifications or skills, such as a doctor, a lawyer, an astronaut, a teacher, a technician, a web programmer, and etc.

Synonyms

Synonyms are words with the same or similar meanings. Words that are synonyms are said to be synonymous, and the state of being a synonym is called synonymy. The word comes from Ancient Greek syn (σύν) ("with") and onoma (ὄνομα) ("name"). An example of synonyms are the words beginand commence. Likewise, if we talk about a long time or an extended time, long and extended become synonyms. In the figurative sense, two words are often said to be synonymous if they have the same connotation:

"a widespread impression that... Hollywood was synonymous with immorality" (Doris Kearns Goodwin)

Synonyms can be any part of speech (such as nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs or prepositions), as long as both words are the same part of speech. Here are more examples of English synonyms:

verb

"buy" and "purchase"

adjective

"big" and "large"

adverb

"quickly" and "speedily"

preposition

"on" and "upon"

Note that synonyms are defined with respect to certain senses of words; for instance, pupil as the "aperture in the iris of the eye" is not synonymous with student. Likewise, he expired means the same as he died, yet my passport has expired cannot be replaced by my passport has died.

In English, many synonyms emerged in the Middle Ages, after the Norman conquest of England. While England's new ruling class spoke Norman French, the lower classes continued to speak Old English (Anglo-Saxon). Thus, today we have synonyms like the Norman-derived "people", "liberty" and "archer", and the Saxon-derived "folk", "freedom" and "bowman". For more examples, see the list of Germanic and Latinate equivalents in English.

Some lexicographers claim that no synonyms have exactly the same meaning (in all contexts or social levels of language) because etymology, orthography, phonic qualities, ambiguous meanings, usage, etc. make them unique. Different words that are similar in meaning usually differ for a reason: feline is more formal than cat; long and extended are only synonyms in one usage and not in others (for example, a long arm is not the same as an extended arm). Synonyms are also a source of euphemisms.

The purpose of a thesaurus is to offer the user a listing of similar or related words; these are often, but not always, synonyms.

Antonyms Or Opposites

            An antonym is a word which means the opposite of another word. Antonyms are also called opposites. Two opposites of “light” are “dark” and “heavy”