Ugly?

[topogigo]

How can we say that someone is ugly?
I do it, we all do i am sure but how can we say what that actually means. Most of the time we agree that someone or something is ugly so there must be a standard that we all refer to, is there?

[pinkkitty]

I'd heard stories of "measurments of beauty" whereby Beauty can be calculated by measuring the dimensions of the face - size of nose, width of forehead, distance between the eyes etc. I was curious, so i googled it. I couldn't find any such formula, but i found an article somewhere about how someone had taken a whole list of famous women's faces and tried to measure and quantify their features to see whether they all had something in common. They found that there was no correlation at all, with all of them having different size & shaped facial features. The conclusion being that they had some certain je ne sais quoi that meant people looked at them and thought "beautiful" I assume, then, that Ugliness must work in the same way, what may be attractive to one person may look ugly to another. Helena Rubenstein once said "there are no Ugly women, only lazy ones" I think that maybe certain things may be considered more "ugly" than others - fatness maybe, or bad skin or yellowing teeth, or buck teeth, or something. I think its risky to judge a person soley on their physical appearance, a lot of people who might be considered unattractive are very beautiful on the inside, and some of the prettiest girls i've met are complete b1tches.

[cruella]

Beauty is in the eyes of the beholder, or so they say! I would say beauty is what is pleasing to that particular person. We all have different views

[B00]

if we're talking just physical beauty, I'm sure there isn't a 'standard' of what is considered ugly or indeed beautiful, however I'm sure that someone had a physical abnormality or deformity on their face then that would make that person ugly to look at?

And yes, before anyone lynches me, I'm talking purely physical here, I'm well aware that personality counts for far more.

[sophie_1003]

apparently 'beautiful' people have more symmetrical faces. therefore ugly people have asymmetrical faces!

[Le Chat]

An ugly person can look more attractive given the right circumstances. Take Mick Hucknall for example. If he were just a regular bloke in a club in Manchester and he tried to chat you up, you would probably recoil! However, as a mulit-millionaire singer, songwriter, you would probably not notice his facial and bodily imperfections...well you would but would tolerate them! Ask the model who he's married to!!

[zotticus]

all faces are asymetrical on everybody. no-ones face is completely symetrical so sophie i fail to see your logic