Research has shown that two-thirds of human conversation is taken up not with discussion of the cultural or political problems of the day, not heated debates about films we've just watched or books we've just finished reading, but plain and simple 1.

    Language is our greatest treasure as a species, and what do we 2 do with it? We gossip. About others' behaviour and private lives, such as who's doing what with whom, who's in and who's out-and why; how to deal with difficult 3 situations involving children, lovers, and colleagues.

    So why are we keen on gossiping? Are we just natural4, of both time and words? Or do we talk a lot about nothing in particular simply to avoid facing up to the really important issues of life? It's not the case according to Professor Robin Dunbar. In fact, in his latest book, Grooming, Gossip and the Evolution of Language, the psychologist says gossip is one of these really5issues.

    Dunbar 6 the traditional view that language was developed by the men at the early stage of social development in order to organize their manly hunting activities more effectively, or even to promote the exchange of poetic stories about their origins and the supernatural. Instead he suggests that language evolved among women. We don't spend two-thirds of our time gossiping just because we can talk, argues Dunbar—7, he goes on to say, language evolved specifically to allow us to gossip.

    Dunbar arrived at his cheery theory by studying the 8 of the higher primates（灵长类动物）like monkeys. By means of grooming--cleaning the fur by brushing it, monkeys form groups with other individuals on whom they can rely for support in the event of some kind of conflict within the group or9 from outside it.

    As we human beings evolve from a particular branch of the primate family, Dunbar 10 that at one time in our history we did much the same. Grouping together made sense because the bigger the group, the greater the 11 it provided; on the other hand, the bigger the group, the greater the stresses of living close to others. Grooming helped to 12 the pressure and calm everybody down.

    But as the groups got bigger and bigger, the amount of time spent in grooming activities also had to be 13 to maintain its effectiveness. Clearly, a more 14 kind of grooming was needed, and thus language evolved as a kind of vocal（有声的）grooming which allowed humans to develop relationship with ever-larger groups by exchanging information over a wider network of individuals than would be possible by one-to-one 15contact.