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  • he's a review from BBC Learning English Hello and welcome to News Review The program where we show you how to use the language from the latest news stories in your everyday English.

  • Hi, I'm Neil.

  • Joining me today is Dan.

  • Hi, Dan.

  • Hello, everybody.

  • So what's our story?

  • It's a story about the power of language to make something that many people consider to be boring, much more attractive.

  • The power of language That's right.

  • Sounds fascinating.

  • Let's find out some more from this.

  • BBC World Service News Bulletin Psychological Study of Students in California suggests people are more likely to consume healthy portions of vegetables if they're labeled with seductive names.

  • The phone sales went up by 25% when advertised with indulgent labels such as twisted Citrus glazed carrots on sweet, sizzling green beans on crispy shallots.

  • It's so a study into human behavior has found that sales of healthy vegetables increased by 25% or 1/4 when the vegetables were labeled with attractive sounding names.

  • So rather than just carrots where they were twisted Citrus glazed carrots, Shakespeare asked us.

  • So what's in a name?

  • A rose by any other name would smell a sweet.

  • Maybe it's true.

  • Maybe no very poetic.

  • Dead.

  • Do you need to have your carrots made more attractive?

  • No, I'm quite happy with boiled carrots is perfectly fine.

  • Okay, well, you've been looking at the news websites that this story you've picked out three words that will help people to understand talk about this story.

  • That's right.

  • So the three words I've picked out our indulgent, decadent and jazzier, indulgent, decadent and jazzier.

  • So let's take a look at that first headline, please.

  • Certainly the first headline comes from I News, Theo, Essential Daily Briefing and Saiz.

  • Indulgent names make vegetables more appealing, indulgent meaning, allowing you to do something when you shouldn't.

  • That's right.

  • So indulgent is an objective.

  • The noun is indulgence, and the verb is to indulge.

  • And as you said, it means to allow someone to do something when you shouldn't Really.

  • Now you have kids, Neil.

  • I bet you're quite indulgent with them.

  • Well, yes, I suppose I can be it.

  • For example, at the moment it's We've got beautiful, hot, sunny weather here on, and the kids want ice cream all the time.

  • But of course, ice cream is not very good for you is is bad for your teeth.

  • It's full of fat and sugar.

  • It's not very responsible thing to allow Children to eat too much off.

  • But they love it so much.

  • Who cares?

  • They can.

  • I can be indulgent.

  • I can indulge them.

  • That's right.

  • Now, if anybody out there doesn't have Children, then they'll understand the same feeling.

  • If they were to look at a big slice of delicious chocolate cake, that little voice in the back of their head says, You shouldn't eat.

  • It is full of fat.

  • It's full of sugar.

  • It's gonna do horrible things to you in science.

  • But there's another little voice that says, Go on, It's gonna taste so good when you give in and listen to the voice that says it's gonna taste so good Then you are acting indulgently.

  • Yes, it's got a sense of being naughty, but nice.

  • That's right.

  • Naughty but nice.

  • So a synonym would be permissive and an antonym or on opposite word would be strict or intolerant.

  • And it's a very marketing word.

  • You often see adverts that say, indulge your senses and things like that, that kind, try and convince you to be naughty, but nice.

  • Okay, well, let's move on now to our next headline.

  • So our next headline comes from the Stanford News and says decadent sounding descriptions could lead to higher consumption of vegetables.

  • Stanford Research finds so decadent, meaning pleasant but immoral.

  • Exactly.

  • So pleasant.

  • Pleasant.

  • Sorry.

  • The idea of pleasure.

  • Possibly too much pleasure.

  • And, in fact, maybe pleasure.

  • Lacking restraints, you don't control yourself.

  • And so, in the eyes of society, you are considered to be bad.

  • Yeah.

  • Now, how's your history?

  • Not bad.

  • Not bad.

  • OK, think about the last days of room.

  • Ah, yes.

  • They say that the last days of Rome were very decadent.

  • Lots of wild parties with drinking and eating too much and people being energetically friendly, energetically friendly people which, of course, we know about Rome.

  • What happened to Rome?

  • It fit, declined and fell.

  • And that interestingly, when you use the word decline, that's very good, because the original meaning of decadent comes from French, and it translates as in a state of decay or decline.

  • So there you go.

  • So the noun is decadence and certain sent synonyms are debauched or immoral, and an opposite would be moral or decent.

  • Yeah.

  • You're a moral and decent kind of guy.

  • Hunt you down.

  • I wouldn't describe you as decadent.

  • I'm certainly not very decadent in my everyday life.

  • Now I am.

  • I tend to eat quite healthy food.

  • I go to the gym, I exercise, get up, get up nice and early.

  • And I go to bed at a nice early 10 o'clock.

  • But get me at a party on a Friday night.

  • I can be quite quite decadent.

  • Right?

  • Okay, let's Let's not talk about you and party moving on.

  • All right, So our third headline comes from the consumerist and it says, Do jazzier descriptions entice people to eat more vegetables.

  • Okay.

  • Jazzier, meaning brighter, more colorful and more attractive.

  • Exactly.

  • So jazzier is the comparative form of the objective.

  • Jazzy.

  • Now, do you know much about jazz music?

  • Well, this is C.

  • I'm confused again down because why are we talking about jazz?

  • A minute ago, we were talking about the Roman Empire and and things that were too bad for you.

  • What's what's this got to do with jazz?

  • So I like to think that not only we educating in terms of language, but we're providing a broad spectrum of of subjects.

  • However, what do you know about jazz music?

  • That kind of guys?

  • Exactly.

  • So jazz music is quite lively and energetic, and something which is jazzy is colorful, energetic and lively.

  • It comes directly from the type of music is a very informal word, and it can basically be used to describe anything.

  • Yeah, perhaps a shirt.

  • Yes.

  • We went to the beach recently.

  • We did.

  • And even though it wasn't actually a very sunny day has can often happen in this country.

  • Um, you were wearing a shirt that was so bright.

  • I needed to wear sunglasses.

  • Yes, it looked like an artist had eaten all his paints and then sneezed on me.

  • Yeah, that's right.

  • That's right.

  • It was a very jazzy shirt.

  • Thank you very much.

  • Well, you, on the other hand, had a rather drab and grey looking shirt on, and I thought to myself, I'm wearing a nice, jazzy shirt.

  • Neil should jazz himself up a little bit.

  • You did say that.

  • Um, but you can't just something down.

  • No, you can't.

  • Just something down.

  • You can adjust something up.

  • So you make something more colorful, energetic or lively.

  • Okay, well, before we recap our vocabulary, we have our Facebook challenge.

  • Of course, the question was this.

  • Vegetables with seductive names sell better, according to a new study.

  • Which of these words is not a synonym off seductive?

  • Is it a a leering, be enticing or see ingratiating?

  • How was the response?

  • The response was again, overwhelmingly positive.

  • So Jenny Huang, Hirokazu Condo, Antony said off Phillipe Laban.

  • They all suggested See, as did many other people on the page and see is the correct answer.

  • Ingratiating is not a synonym off seductive.

  • However, there is one really interesting one, slightly near the bottom money, Yadana says.

  • Do I have no idea?

  • Well, money, I hope we've answered your question.

  • Thank you for writing to us.

  • Yes, thank you.

  • And Dan, Can you just now recap the vocabulary?

  • Certainly.

  • So.

  • The first word was indulgent, meaning, allowing you to do something when you shouldn't.

  • Then we had decadent, which is pleasant but immoral.

  • And finally we had jazzier, brighter, more colorful and more attractive.

  • If you would like to test yourself on today's vocabulary, there's a quiz you can take on our website.

  • BBC Learning english dot com, where you can find all kinds of other videos and activities to help you improve your English.

  • Thanks for joining us and good bye Bye.

  • He's review from BBC Learning English.

he's a review from BBC Learning English Hello and welcome to News Review The program where we show you how to use the language from the latest news stories in your everyday English.

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