Welcome to English as a Second Language podcast number 1148, Distinctive Facial Features.
This is English as a Second Language podcast, episode 1148.
I'm your host, Dr Jeff McQuillan, coming to you from the Center for Educational Development in beautiful Los Angeles, California.
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This episode is a dialogue between Mona and Leonardo about the way we describe people's faces.
Let's get started.
How is the portrait coming along?
This commission is quite a godsend for a new artist.
If you do a good job with this portrait, you may get other commissions.
It's all the same to me.
I paint them as I see them.
Well, I hope not exactly as you see them.
A portrait has to be flattering, doesn't it?
You mean I should downplay bulging eyes, hooked noses, and double chins?
No way.
That's what makes each face distinctive.
Maybe that isn't the best way to think about it.
Everybody has an image of themselves in their mind's eye.
You would just be capturing that image.
I'm an artist, not a psychologist.
If they have squinty eyes, ears that stick out, a weak chin, or thin lips...
But this sketch shows a really prominent forehead and a receding hairline.
Maybe you could just... No.
I have to be true to my art.
I'm not compromising.
I was just hoping you could finally make enough money to move off of my couch.
Mona begins by asking Leonardo, how is the portrait coming along?
A portrait, P-O-R-T-R-A-I-T, is a formal painting or, nowadays, photograph of a person.
It could be either one.
Normally, a portrait is of the person's upper body, his head, neck, shoulders, perhaps his chest.
Many governments have official portraits of their leaders, for example.
A famous person might want a portrait of himself or herself.
Mona asks how the portrait is coming along, meaning how is it going.
Usually, when you ask someone how something is coming along, you are implying that the person has started it already and you want to know how much progress he's made.
Leonardo says, I'm done with the sketches and I'm ready to start on the painting.
A sketch.
S-K-E-T-C-H is a simple drawing that is made often when you are preparing to paint something.
Paint a portrait or a picture.
Sometimes people like to sketch just to get ideas for their pieces of art, for their paintings.
Leonardo is done with, that is, he has completed the sketches for the portrait.
Mona says, this commission is quite a godsend for a new artist.
A commission here refers to a request for an artist to do something, usually in exchange for money.
A rich person may commission a portrait of his family or of his wife or of himself.
Sometimes governments will give money to artists.
They will commission. commission a piece of art, a painting, or perhaps a piece of music.
Mona says this commission is quite a godsend, G-O-D-S-E-N-D.
A godsend is something that is very fortunate, something that seems to come from heaven, something that is very beneficial for you.
Mona says, if you do a good job with this portrait, you may get other commissions.
Leonardo says, it's all the same to me.
He doesn't seem to care if he gets other commissions.
He says, I paint them as I see them.
Mona says, well, I hope not exactly as you see them.
A portrait has to be flattering, doesn't it?
Mona is saying that Leonardo needs to paint the portrait of whomever he's painting, so that the person looks beautiful, that the person looks good.
That's what we mean by the word flattering, F-L-A-T-T-E-R-I-N-G.
Something that is flattering makes someone feel good or important or in this case, attractive.
The verb to flatter means to Tell someone how good they look or how important they are.
To pay someone a compliment, we might also say.
Mona says a portrait has to be flattering.
It has to make the person look good.
Leonardo says, you mean I should downplay bulging eyes, hooked noses, and double chins?
No way.
To downplay means to act as if something were smaller or less important than it actually is.
Another verb here would be to de-emphasize the importance of something.
To downplay the importance of something is to act as though it isn't very important.
Leonardo then lists or gives us a list of features or things that you might see in a person's face that are not very attractive.
These include bulging eyes, hooked noses, and double chins.
A bulging B-U-L-G-I-N-G eye E-Y-E is an eye that sticks out from the surface of the face and it appears to be larger than it should be.
Some people have very bulging eyes, very big eyes.
The eyes seem too big for the face.
A hooked H-O-O-K-E-D nose is is a nose that seems to have a bend or a curve in the upper half of it.
Double chins are chins that are fat.
Your chin, C-H-I-N, is the bottom part of your face below your mouth.
If you have a double chin you may have some extra fat in your face that makes it look as though you have a second chin below your regular chin.
I guess you could say
Leonardo doesn't believe in downplaying these features, these things that are part of one's face or could be part of one's face.
He says that's what makes each face distinctive.
D-I-S-T-I-N-C-T-I-V-E.
Distinctive means different, unique.
Mona says maybe that isn't the best way to think about it.
Everybody has an image of themselves in their mind's eye.
What Mona is saying is that each person has an image or a way that he sees himself, a way that he imagines himself or she imagines herself.
Your mind's M-I-N-D apostrophe S-I is the way that you think about something, the way you imagine something.
Mona says, you would just be capturing that image.
She's saying that the purpose of the portrait is to try to get the image that the person has of himself in his own mind.
Leonardo, however, says, I'm an artist, not a psychologist.
If they have squinty eyes, ears that stick out, a weak chin or thin lips.
That's what I'm going to paint.
Once again, Leonardo gives us a list of facial features, that is, things that you notice about a person's face.
These include squinty, S-Q-U-I-N-T-Y, eyes.
Squinty eyes are eyes that are partially closed.
It almost looks as though the person may be falling asleep.
If your ears stick out, your ears go out or extend out from your head farther than what would be normal.
Some people say President Obama has ears that stick out, that go out away from his head farther than you might normally expect ears to go.
I don't know if that's true or not.
In general the phrasal verb to stick out means to extend outward from the surface of something.
We also use that phrasal verb to refer to something or someone who is very noticeable, often in a bad way.
If you go to the beach dressed in a suit and a tie, you will stick out because everyone else will be different.
Everyone else will be dressed differently than you are dressed.
That's another meaning of the phrasal verb to stick out.
Leonardo also mentions someone having a weak, W-E-A-K, chin.
A weak chin is a chin that you almost don't notice, a chin that doesn't seem to be very distinctive, almost as though it's part of your neck or that you don't have a chin.
Leonardo says he's going to paint people how they look.
He's not going to try to hide these somewhat unattractive facial features.
Mona says, but this sketch shows a really prominent forehead and a receding hairline.
Your forehead.
F-O-R-E-H-E-A-D is the top of your head, above your eyes and below where most people have hair.
A prominent P-R-O-M-I-N-E-N-T forehead is a forehead that doesn't have very much hair covering it, or perhaps is a forehead that is bigger than you would normally expect.
Your hairline, H-A-I-R-L-I-N-E, is the line that is formed by your hair, where your hair ends, if you will, at the top of your head.
Now some, particularly men, as they get older, have what's called a receding R-E-C-E-D-I-N-G hairline.
Receding comes from the verb to recede, which means to draw back or to go back.
A receding hairline is when you start losing your hair, so that you don't have a lot of hair at the front of your head.
Some of us have receding hairlines and have decided simply to get rid of all of our hair, so you don't notice it.
I know someone like that.
Mona is once again pointing out to Leonardo that there are some facial features in his portrait that the person who commissioned the portrait might not be very happy about.
Leonardo, however, says, no, I have to be true to my art.
To be true to something means to defend it or to be loyal to it, not to do anything that would hurt it.
There was an old song by the Beach Boys called called Be True to Your School.
Be true to your school.
Meaning, I suppose, that you were supposed to be loyal to your school.
In particular, I think the song was about a person's high school.
To be true to your school would be to support it, not to say bad things about it.
I don't know if I can be true to my high school, but certainly some people feel great loyalty to the schools that they attended, that they were students in.
Leonardo is talking about being true to his art.
He says, I'm not compromising.
To compromise means to not do what you want to do, to perhaps change things in order to get along with someone else or, in this case, to make the person who commissioned the portrait happy.
Mona is disappointed.
She says, Your couch, C-O-U-C-H, is your sofa.
It's a large piece of furniture usually in your living room where two or more people can sit.
Mona is complaining that Leonardo is apparently sleeping on her couch, meaning he doesn't have a place to stay.
He doesn't have his own apartment, so he's staying with her temporarily.
Of course, one of the reasons he doesn't have his own apartment is that he doesn't have enough money to go and get his own place to live.
Mona is hoping that he can be a successful artist so that he can make money and stop sleeping on her couch.
Now let's listen to the dialogue, this time at a normal speed.
How is the portrait coming along?
I'm done with the sketches and I'm ready to start on the paintings.
This commission is quite a godsend for a new artist.
If you do a good job with this portrait, you may get other commissions.
It's all the same to me.
I paint them as I see them.
Well, I hope not exactly as you see them.
A portrait has to be flattering, doesn't it?
You mean I should downplay bulging eyes, hooked noses, and double chins?
No way.
That's what makes each face distinctive.
Maybe that isn't the best way to think about it.
Everybody has an image of themselves in their mind's eye.
You would just be capturing that image.
I'm an artist, not a psychologist.
If they have squinty eyes, ears that stick out, a weak chin or thin lips.
That's what I'm going to paint.
But this sketch shows a really prominent forehead and a receding hairline.
Maybe you could just...
No, I have to be true to my art.
I'm not compromising.
I was just hoping you could finally make enough money to move off of my couch.
Lucy says scripts are a godsend to those who are interested in improving their English.
Thank you, Lucy.
From Los Angeles, California, I'm Jeff McQuillan.
Thank you for listening.
Come back and listen to us again right here on ESL Podcast.
English as a Second Language Podcast is written and produced by Dr Lucy Say, hosted by Dr Jeff McQuillan.
Copyright 2015 by the Center for Educational Development.
