You
and your sister bought a gift for your mom's birthday, but you wrapped it at
your house yesterday. You show her the ornately wrapped present on the way to
the birthday party. Ooh, pretty!
People say "Ooh"
when they're surprised by something, or when they suddenly notice something.
For example:
Ooh, I forgot to tell you: I'm going out of town next
weekend.
Ooh, my back is sore!
You can use "Ooh!"
for either positive or negative things. But there's another version of
"Ooh" that's pronounced with a longer sound which has a completely
positive meaning:
When you give someone or
something a compliment, you don’t always need a complete sentence.
Awesome!
Gorgeous!
Sometimes people will say a
short exclamation first, like ‘ooh!” or ‘wow!’
Ooh, nice!
Wow, beautiful!
"Pretty" is similar
to "beautiful" but it's not as strong. Things that you can describe
as "pretty" include:
What's the difference between
"beautiful", "pretty", "gorgeous", and
"handsome"?
The words
"beautiful", "pretty", "gorgeous", and
"handsome" all describe something which looks good. When several
words have the same meaning, how can you choose which one to use?
The best way to learn similar
words is to learn them in phrases. Learn the words that go along with them.
Who do we talk about?
So let's start with
"beautiful", "pretty", "gorgeous", and
"handsome". Who does each word usually describe?
a beautiful woman
a pretty girl
a gorgeous girl
a handsome man
You can see a few differences
immediately. First, the word "handsome" usually describes men instead
of women. Next, "beautiful" fits best with "woman" instead
of "girl". So you can see that the word "beautiful" is a
little more sophisticated.
What do we talk about?
Now let's see what objects these
words usually describe:
a beautiful dress
beautiful flowers
beautiful scenery
gorgeous hair
a gorgeous dress
a gorgeous beach
a pretty face
a pretty picture
a pretty dress
handsome features
a handsome profit
Some interesting things to
notice here: all of the "female" words can be used to describe a
dress. So you can tell that there is overlap between the words. In a lot of
situations, you have more than one choice.
You can see that both
"pretty" and "handsome" describe someone's face. But we use
"features" to talk about a man's face instead of the word
"face".
"Beautiful" and
"gorgeous" describe parts of nature. But "beautiful" is
more common when talking about something small like a flower, while
"gorgeous" fits bettter with something large like a beach.
Finally, isn't it funny that a
common use of "handsome" is related to money? A "handsome"
profit means a large amount of profit.
What else comes with it?
Adjectives are often used
along with an adverb. Let's look at what adverbs fit well with
"beautiful", "pretty", "gorgeous", and
"handsome":
incredibly beautiful
stunningly beautiful
conventionally pretty
exceptionally pretty
absolutely gorgeous
drop-dead gorgeous
strikingly handsome
ruggedly handsome
Here, we see a lot of
differences. Each word has a different set of adverbs that it fits with.
Many of these adverbs just
mean "very": "incredibly", "stunningly",
"exceptionally", "absolutely", "drop-dead", and
"strikingly" all emphasize how good-looking something is.
The phrase "conventially
pretty" means pretty in an ordinary and not very exciting way.
A "ruggedly
handsome" man is handsome in a kind of rough-looking way.
We can also look at what other adjectives
are often used together with "beautiful", "pretty", "gorgeous",
and "handsome":
beautiful and elegant
beautiful and talented
smart and pretty
pretty/sexy
beautiful and gorgeous
tall and gorgeous
tall and handsome
handsome, young
You can form your own
conclusions based on this list. Do you notice any interesting or surprising
combinations?
What should you do with all of this information?
You still probably don't
completely understand the differences between "beautiful",
"pretty", "gorgeous", and "handsome". That's OK!
Most English speakers couldn't explain them either.
But hopefully, you now have
some feeling for
how they're used.
The best way to keep this
feeling is to memorize each of these phrases. Remember which words go together.
Here's a fill-in-the-blank list to help you:
1.
a ___ woman
2.
absolutely ___
3.
a ___ beach
4.
stunningly ___
5.
a ___ picture
6.
conventionally ___
7.
___ hair
8.
___ features
9.
tall and ___ (2
answers)
10.
a ___ profit
11.
a ___ dress (3 answers)
12.
incredibly ___
13.
exceptionally ___
14.
___ flowers
15.
a ___ girl (2 answers)
16.
drop-dead ___
17.
___, young
18.
___/sexy
19.
a ___ face
20.
strikingly ___
21.
a ___ man
22.
ruggedly ___
23.
___ and elegant
24.
smart and ___
25.
beautiful and ___
26.
___ and talented
27.
___ scenery
When it comes time to choose
which word to use, you'll have some examples to compare to.