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  • hello and welcome to News Review I Neil and joining me across on the other side

  • of London is Katherine hi Katherine hello Niall hello everyone

  • now what story have you got for us today well today we're looking at the black

  • lives matter protests that have been happening in a lot of countries around

  • the world okay let's find out some more about that from this BBC Radio 4 news

  • bulletin the Prime Minister has condemned what he called racist thuggery

  • after clashes between protesters and police in central London crowds of

  • mainly white men gathered around the Sir Winston Churchill statue in Parliament

  • Square saying they wanted to protect it from vandalism by anti racism

  • demonstrators so following the death in the United States of George Floyd there

  • have been black lives matter protests all over the world now recently in the

  • British city of Bristol protesters removed the statue of a man called

  • Edward Coulston who was a slave trader and they threw it into the river now

  • people are now worried about the statue of Winston Churchill outside the UK

  • Parliament houses of parliament and at the weekend there were a lot of protests

  • around this statue a lot of far-right demonstrators surrounded the statue

  • there was some violence with the police and over a hundred people were arrested

  • okay well you've been looking at the headlines around this story and you've

  • picked out three words and expressions what do you have

  • we have thuggery clash and headed off buggery clash and headed off so your

  • first headline please with that word thuggery so first we're going to Sky

  • News here in the UK the headline more than a hundred arrested at protests as

  • PM condemns racist thuggery thuggery violent behavior yes this word is

  • spelled th u gg e or Y and it's pronounced thuggery now

  • let's take the root of this word folk th Eugene Neal you know what a thug is

  • don't you I do a thug is a violent person somebody who enjoys creating

  • violence yes like a hooligan or a bully that's right

  • and we often hear this word in connection with that word you said

  • they're hooligan connected to football violence for example yes we could talk

  • about the football thugs a football thug is a somebody who creates a lot of

  • disturbance who fights at football matches just because they like fighting

  • quite frankly and if we take so the thug is a known for a person fugly is a noun

  • for the behavior so in this case Boris Johnson the UK Prime Minister was

  • talking about racist thuggery EE based on race but we can talk about all sorts

  • of we could talk about football thuggery and that means the thuggish behavior

  • which is the objective focus thuggery footballs Pythagorean his violent

  • aggressive behavior at football matches that's right can a woman be a thug yes a

  • woman can be a thug it's interesting if you look in the dictionaries they often

  • talk about em the the lot of them say it's a man it's a violent aggressive man

  • but in fact anybody can displays thuggish behavior whether they're male

  • or female that's right okay let's now have a summary of that word

  • time now for our second headline then please yes now we're going to the I

  • still in the UK the headline black lives matter protests resumed after far-right

  • clash with police in London clash here just meaning fight yes okay so the word

  • is clash sea and a SH clash and clash is an onomatopoeic word that means it

  • sounds like a sound so what's a clash Neal well for example two pieces of

  • metal hitting each other let's say swords seeing as we're talking about

  • fights they create a clash yes in those fantasy dramas things like Game of

  • Thrones everybody's fighting with metal weapons like swords and they have metal

  • shields to defend themselves and as these two pieces of metal hit each other

  • you get this clashing noise the noise of metal hitting metal is a clash but the

  • word clash also describes the fight itself you've got two people clashing on

  • the battlefield and that's the use of clash in this case a clash is a fight

  • it's an aggressive confrontation here the fight or the confrontation the

  • aggression was between the police and the far-right demonstrators but you can

  • also use the word clash when there isn't any violence just to describe a

  • disagreement a strong disagreement I think sometimes Neil I've seen you

  • clashing with people in meetings occasionally well I try not to and I

  • definitely wouldn't bring a sword no you wouldn't bring a sword to a meeting but

  • if you have a disagreement with somebody and you kind of yeah it's a slightly

  • angry disagreement or it's a very you know serious disagreement one on one you

  • can call that a clash we often see clashing in Parliament there we yes

  • politicians clash with each other often they have

  • angry arguments in the political in the political arena but you can clash with

  • somebody at home as well you might say I'm I clash with my husband over

  • childcare and the prepositions are you clash with somebody over something yeah

  • and we we see this word a lot in headlines don't we it's not necessarily

  • something you would use in your everyday speech not as much as headlines we love

  • it because it's a really dramatic word and fight is a good word but clash has a

  • lot of drama to it so headline news headline writers really like this word

  • clash okay let's have a summary

  • we have another video on the subject of racism which you might like to watch

  • where can they find it Catherine yes it's a story about racism in the UK and

  • if you click the link in the description you'll go straight to it

  • time for our next headline please yes we're BBC news here in the UK the

  • headline clashes headed off by police at Glasgow statue protests headed off

  • prevent it from happening yes so two words in this vocabulary item

  • now headed H EA D et of Oh double f headed off no this is a

  • phrasal verb it's a past of the verb head off head off you'll be pleased to

  • know Nia that this isn't about removing anybody's head yes that is good to know

  • it's also it's also not really connected to another phrasal verb also head off

  • which means to start going somewhere not so much though if you head off on a

  • journey or you head off towards something you start moving in that

  • particular direction so it's not about starting a journey it's more to do with

  • presenting somebody else completing their journey so in this case the

  • Glasgow protestors Glasgow is a city in Scotland in the UK they have a statue

  • there the protestors wanted to get to this statue so they headed off in that

  • direction but the police got to the statue first and they stopped the

  • demonstrators from reaching their target so if you head somebody off or you had

  • something of you stop it from completing its journey and we often can hear this

  • word used to describe for example planning to prevent something bad

  • happening in the future like we could say that flood defences headed

  • off the threat of flooding yes absolutely yes most definitely or

  • perhaps I headed off a tantrum from my children by buying them ice cream yes

  • you can head off a lot of bar de Vence pie with ice cream with kids okay let's

  • have a summary time now then for a recap of the vocabulary yes we had burglary

  • violent behavior we had clash which means fight and

  • headed off prevented from happening if you'd like to test yourself on the

  • vocabulary there's a quiz on our website BBC learning english.com stay safe see

  • you next time goodbye bye

hello and welcome to News Review I Neil and joining me across on the other side

Subtitles and vocabulary

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