William Chong

Got a fantastic article today from my AWAD email. Motherjones.com has made a list of 20 interesting euphemisms that have been employed to describe the physical appearance of Britain’s Got Talent megastar Susan Boyle (you know the one…) – a little snapshot of the power of the English vocabulary (and the creatives that put it to good use).

A few highlights below:

… and how we wrote her off because of her not-hottitude. Right?

1. “The plain Jane superstar,” – Daily News article

2. “Like Shrek come to life,” – Rosie O’Donnell to People magazine.

4. “Plain, dowdy, unemployed,” – New York Magazine round up.

5. The Age of Melbourne let an imaginary Jane Austen do the dissing and refers to her as “ill-favoured.”

“Ill-favoured” – interesting…

6. “Stocky, beetle-browed,” is the word from The LA Times.

Do beetles have eyebrows?

9. “Hairy angel” and “unfortunate gait”Daily Mail

14. The New York Post gave us “ugly duckling” and “golden-throated spinster,” which has to be the most Brothers Grimm take.

Well her story is almost like a Brothers Grimm fairytale, no?

18. “Avatar of yearning” – Tina Brown, The Daily Beast.

LOL.

19. “Badger in a dress” – Wales on Sunday.

If you have been hiding for the past few weeks or just haven’t seen her amazing performance of Les Mis’s “I Dreamed a Dream”, you have to check it out.

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