Helen of Troy was renowned as a very beautiful woman, said to have possessed “the face that launched a thousand ships” (i.e. to invade Troy and rescue her). Her name has thus become a unit of measure of beauty. For example, a millihelen has been defined as “the amount of beauty needed to launch a single ship”, whereas a negative helen is “the amount of negative beauty (i.e. ugliness) that can beach a thousand ships”.
Peter Grant, “How do you measure up?”, Mad Genius Club, 2018-01-28.
May 8, 2020
QotD: Measuring beauty
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