full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Frans de Waal: The surprising science of alpha males

Unscramble the Blue Letters


So Amos was an example of a male who was liked as a leader, and I think the term alpha male, if you look it up on the internet, you will find all these business bkoos that tell you how to be an alpha male, and what they mean is how to beat up others and beat them over the head and let them know that you are boss and don't mess with me and so on. And bcilsalay an alpha male for them is a bully. And I really don't like that kind of depciortisn, because I am actually partly responsible for the term "alpha male" because I wrote this book "Chimpanzee ptilicos," which was reeoncdmemd by Newt Gingrich to freshmen congressmen. I don't know what good it did, but he recommended that book to them, and after that the term "alpha male" became very popular. But I think it is used in a mischaracterization. It's used in a very superficial way that doesn't relate to what a real ahlpa male is. And so I'm here to explain what that is. The term itself goes back actually much further. It goes back to the '40s and '50s, research on wolves, and basically the dntoiiifen is very simple. The hgesiht ranking male is the alpha male. The highest ranking female is the alpha female. Every ptmirae group has one alpha male, one alpha female, not more than that, there's only one. And I will eaxlipn how that goes.

Open Cloze


So Amos was an example of a male who was liked as a leader, and I think the term alpha male, if you look it up on the internet, you will find all these business _____ that tell you how to be an alpha male, and what they mean is how to beat up others and beat them over the head and let them know that you are boss and don't mess with me and so on. And _________ an alpha male for them is a bully. And I really don't like that kind of ___________, because I am actually partly responsible for the term "alpha male" because I wrote this book "Chimpanzee ________," which was ___________ by Newt Gingrich to freshmen congressmen. I don't know what good it did, but he recommended that book to them, and after that the term "alpha male" became very popular. But I think it is used in a mischaracterization. It's used in a very superficial way that doesn't relate to what a real _____ male is. And so I'm here to explain what that is. The term itself goes back actually much further. It goes back to the '40s and '50s, research on wolves, and basically the __________ is very simple. The _______ ranking male is the alpha male. The highest ranking female is the alpha female. Every _______ group has one alpha male, one alpha female, not more than that, there's only one. And I will _______ how that goes.

Solution


  1. description
  2. books
  3. basically
  4. politics
  5. recommended
  6. alpha
  7. highest
  8. explain
  9. primate
  10. definition

Original Text


So Amos was an example of a male who was liked as a leader, and I think the term alpha male, if you look it up on the internet, you will find all these business books that tell you how to be an alpha male, and what they mean is how to beat up others and beat them over the head and let them know that you are boss and don't mess with me and so on. And basically an alpha male for them is a bully. And I really don't like that kind of description, because I am actually partly responsible for the term "alpha male" because I wrote this book "Chimpanzee Politics," which was recommended by Newt Gingrich to freshmen congressmen. I don't know what good it did, but he recommended that book to them, and after that the term "alpha male" became very popular. But I think it is used in a mischaracterization. It's used in a very superficial way that doesn't relate to what a real alpha male is. And so I'm here to explain what that is. The term itself goes back actually much further. It goes back to the '40s and '50s, research on wolves, and basically the definition is very simple. The highest ranking male is the alpha male. The highest ranking female is the alpha female. Every primate group has one alpha male, one alpha female, not more than that, there's only one. And I will explain how that goes.

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations


ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
alpha male 25
alpha males 5
male chimpanzees 4
enormous amount 3
wood wool 2
highest ranking 2
alpha female 2
strongest male 2
reproductive success 2
partners happy 2
extremely popular 2
alpha females 2


Important Words


  1. alpha
  2. amos
  3. basically
  4. beat
  5. book
  6. books
  7. boss
  8. bully
  9. business
  10. congressmen
  11. definition
  12. description
  13. explain
  14. female
  15. find
  16. freshmen
  17. gingrich
  18. good
  19. group
  20. head
  21. highest
  22. internet
  23. kind
  24. leader
  25. male
  26. mess
  27. mischaracterization
  28. newt
  29. partly
  30. politics
  31. popular
  32. primate
  33. ranking
  34. real
  35. recommended
  36. relate
  37. research
  38. responsible
  39. simple
  40. superficial
  41. term
  42. wolves
  43. wrote