新视野大学英语第二册读写教程unit6.ppt

Unit 6: Section A As His Name Is, So Is He! YES? NO? or Intensive Study As His Name Is, So Is He! 1 For her first twenty-four years, she’d been known as Debbie – a name that didn’t suit her good looks and elegant manner. “My name has always made me think I should be a cook,” she complained. “I just don’t feel like a Debbie.” 2 One day, while filling out an application form for a publishing job, the young woman impulsively substituted her middle name, Lynne, for her first name Debbie. “That was the smartest thing I ever did,” she says now. “As soon as I stopped calling myself Debbie, I felt more comfortable with myself … and other people started to take me more seriously.” Two years after her successful job interview, the former waitress is now a successful magazine editor. Friends and associates call her Lynne. Intensive Study 3 Naturally, the name change didn’t cause Debbie/Lynne’s professional achievement – but it surely helped if only by adding a bit of self-confidence to her talents. Social scientists say that what you’re called can affect your life. Throughout history, names have not merely identified people but also described them. “… As his name is, so is he…” says the Bible, and Webster’s Dictionary includes the following definition of name: “a word or words expressing some quality considered characteristic or descriptive of a person or a thing, often expressing approval or disapproval”. Note well “approval or disapproval”. For better or worse, qualities such as friendliness or reserve, plainness or charm may be suggested by your name and conveyed to other people before they even meet you. Intensive Study 4 Names become attached to specific images, as anyone who’s been called “a plain Jane” or “just an average Joe” can show. The latter name particularly bothers me since my name is Joe, which some think makes me more qualified to be a baseball player than, say an art critic. Yet, despite this disadvantage, I did manage to bec