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单击此处编辑母版标题样式,单击此处编辑母版文本样式,第二级,第三级,第四级,第五级,*,Unit 6:,Section A,As His Name Is,So Is He!,Intensive Study,As His Name Is,So Is He!,1,For her first twenty-four years,shed 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 dont 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/Lynnes professional achievement but it surely helped,if,only by adding a bit of self-confidence to her talents.Social scientists say that what youre 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 Websters 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 whos 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 become an art critic for a time.Even so,one,prominent,magazine consistently refused to print“Joe”in my by-line,using my first initials,J.S.,instead.I suspect that if I were a more refined,Arthur,or,Adrian,the name would have appeared complete.,Intensive Study,5,Of course,names with a positive sense can work for you,even encourage new,acquaintances,.A recent survey showed that American men thought,Susan,to be the most attractive female name,while women believed,Richard,and,David,were the most attractive for men.One woman I know turned down a blind date with a man named,Harry,because“he sounded dull”.Several evenings later,she came up to me at a party,pressing for,an introduction to a very impressive man;theyd been exchanging glances all evening.“Oh,”I said.“You mean,Harry,.”She was,ill at ease.,Intensive Study,6,Though most of us would like to think ourselves free from such prejudiced notions,were all guilty of name,stereotyping,to some extent.Confess:,wouldn,t you be surprised to meet a carpenter named,Nigel,?A physicist called,Bertha,?A,Pope Mel,?Often,we,project,name-based stereotypes on people,as one woman friend discovered while taking charge of a nursery-schools group of four-year-olds.“There I was,trying to get a little active boy named,Julian,to sit quietly and read a book and pushing a thoughtful creature named,Rory,to play ball.I had their personalities confused because of their names!”,Intensive Study,7,Apparently,such prejudices can affect classroom achievement as well.In a study conducted by,Herbert,Harari,of San Diego State University,and John,McDavid,of Georgia State University,teachers gave consistently lower grades on essays apparently written by boys named,Elmer and Hubert,than they,awarded,to the same papers when the writers names were given as,Michael,and David,.However,teacher prejudice,isn,t the only source of classroom difference.,Dr.Thomas V.,Busse,and Louisa,Seraydarian,of,Temple University,found those girls with names such as,Linda,Diane,Barbara,Carol,and Cindy,performed better on,objectively,graded IQ and achievement tests than did girls with less appealing names.(A companion study showed girls popularity with their peers was also related to the popularity of their names although the connection was less clear for boys.),Intensive Study,8,Though your parents probably meant your name to last a lifetime,remember that when they picked it theyd hardly met you,and the hopes and dreams they valued when they chose it may not match yours.If your name no longer seems to fit you,dont,despair,;you,aren,t,stuck with,the,label,.Movie stars regularly change their names,and with some determination,you can,too.,Debbie,Female name,represents the personality characteristics of generous,understanding,honest,creative and intense.It is a short name of,Deborah,which means bee in Hebrew.Deborah was a heroine and prophetess who led the Israelites to defeat Canaanites as told in the,Old Testament,Book of Judges.Also in the Old Testament,this was the name of the nurse of Rebecca.Long a common Jewish name,De
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