A study of 16 000 people belonging to 37 different cultures as concerns spoken language, habits and history discovered that the traits both men and women search for in a partner are intelligence and kindness. These are also the traits that distinguish man from all other animals. The reason why we are so kind and smart is that in the last few tens of thousands of years it was mainly those who had these attributes who found partners with whom to have offspring and so now we are highly selected for those features. A new study shows a relationship between IQ and number of words one uses in conversation. Researchers therefore wonder why we know ten to twenty times the number of words we actually use. The answer appears to be that in case of courtship we ‘fish’ from this reserve of words to appear more intelligent than rivals. Not just intelligent, but also with a good memory and therefore our mental faculties are intact. Survival is not just about physical strength, but also about social ability. If you have a rich vocabulary it is more likely that you will emerge in situations where there is social competition and the language of a larger number of people is understood. There are exceptions: the limited vocabulary of a foreigner is excused because it is presumed that in the mother tongue vocabulary is rich and the appeal of genes from far away prevails. If you speak a variety of languages, well then competitors are in danger of losing out.