Placeholder Image

Subtitles section Play video

  • 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's Tom.

  • Hello.

  • Hello, Neil.

  • And what's our story?

  • Our story today is about the ongoing controversy surrounding the appointment of Brett Cavern are to the U.

  • S Supreme Court.

  • Okay, let's find out some more about that story from this BBC World Service news bulletin.

  • President Trump has apologized on behalf of the American people to the newly appointed U.

  • S.

  • Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh for what he called the campaign of political and personal destruction that the judge had had to endure.

  • So the story is about Brett Cavern are being appointed as a Supreme Court justice in the United States.

  • Now, Mister Cavern are has had sexual assault allegations made against him.

  • Onda.

  • Because of these, some people think it's inappropriate that he has been nominated for this position now President Trump.

  • But first he's in the position now.

  • He got the job on President Trump at the ceremony to welcome him, apologized in the name of the American people for the treatment that mister Cavern are received from his critics.

  • Okay.

  • Complicated story.

  • Well summarized.

  • Ah, you've been looking at this story how it's being covered on the various news website.

  • I have picked out three items of vocabulary.

  • What have you got?

  • I have on behalf off made up on the final piece.

  • Is Sherrod okay?

  • On Behalf Off Made up and Shiraz.

  • Correct your first headline, then with on behalf of please.

  • So my first headline, New York comes from the Huffington Post On it reads Twitter users erupt after Trump apologizes to cavern are on behalf of our nation on behalf off as a representative off instead off.

  • And so what this means is basically because the the American people cannot speak with one voice.

  • President Trump decided to speak for them.

  • Precisely.

  • Yes.

  • If you speak on behalf off somebody, you do it in their name.

  • And a lot of the controversy comes from the fact that the American people don't have an opinion together.

  • Everybody feels differently.

  • Yep.

  • Okay, now we could use this expression.

  • Um, about a wedding I went to recently.

  • Nice.

  • Yeah, it's probably a nicer example yet There are askew.

  • Know what?

  • Weddings, Usually speeches?

  • Yes.

  • There are special in the UK.

  • Yeah, And who makes those speeches?

  • I am.

  • If it's a groom, then the best man.

  • And on the bright side, the father of the bride will make the speeches.

  • Yeah, well, I went to a wedding and the father of the bride, it was just too emotional and speak tears running down his cheeks and he just couldn't speak.

  • That's a problem.

  • Yeah.

  • And so his son made the speech on his behalf on behalf off his father and which means that he stood up and he said the things that his father wanted to say for him in his place.

  • Excellent.

  • Yes.

  • Was it a good speech?

  • Is an excellent speech.

  • Wonderful.

  • Eso Another way we can use on behalf off is without the proposition off.

  • We can replace off with a pronoun, a personal pronoun.

  • So with your example, you could say the sun made the speech on behalf off the father.

  • For if you want to say in a shorter form, you could say the sun made a speech on his behalf.

  • Is being the father?

  • That's right.

  • Yes.

  • Now something important to note about this expression is that it doesn't mean a simple substitution.

  • No, it doesn't.

  • So, for example, often dan does this.

  • Ah, job that you're doing today.

  • He does now.

  • He's just doing a different job today.

  • Yeah, so we wouldn't say that you are doing this on his behalf.

  • We wouldn't in this situation?

  • No, because Dan's doing something else.

  • And I'm doing news review today.

  • Yeah, they are not related at all.

  • Yeah.

  • However, if Dan fell off his bike on the way to work on couldn't do news review and he called me and he said, Tom, I'm got a real problem.

  • I can't do news of you today.

  • Can you help?

  • And I said yes.

  • And he said, OK, please say this.

  • This and this for me.

  • Then I would be speaking on Dan's behalf.

  • And so there is this idea of consent.

  • Isn't there that if you do some agreement between two or more parties, if you do something on someone's behalf, you are expressing the same ideas?

  • Has them precisely a what I would feel about Dan's opinions, etcetera?

  • I wouldn't say Yeah, because I just be speaking for him.

  • What I had to say, wouldn't.

  • Okay, very good.

  • Let's move on now to our second headline par second headline.

  • Neil is from BBC News and it says, Trump Cavin.

  • Our sex assault claims were all made up, made up imaginary false invented.

  • Okay, Tom.

  • So we've got three words I just used imaginary false and invented and I know what they mean.

  • Why do I have to use this word made up, Which doesn't make any sense to me, it's two words instead of one.

  • What's going on?

  • Good question, Neil.

  • Now the headline is a quote from President Trump, and President Trump is famous for speaking in a natural manner.

  • That's easy to understand.

  • On Made up is something that we say.

  • Often it's a feature of natural speech.

  • If you said something, if you told me something that you had invented or created, that sounds quite formal.

  • Guess where I went yesterday.

  • I don't know.

  • Where did you get?

  • I went to Scotland to Scotland.

  • What did you do?

  • Well, because I'm really into the Loch Ness monster.

  • Yeah.

  • So I went up to Scotland and I stood there for about 15 hours.

  • Stay in hours yesterday at Loch ness waiting to see the Loch Ness monster.

  • Did you see her?

  • No, of course I didn't.

  • Do you know why is a made up It's him Made a made up story.

  • There's no such thing as the likeness.

  • It's a made up monster.

  • It's a made up story about a monster.

  • And Neil, you forget that I do actually sit next to you in the office.

  • So I was watching you yesterday, and I know for a fact you were here in the studio and in the office, not in Scotland.

  • Okay, Made up the story didn't Yes, it's a made up story, but I was just using it to teach people shall waking it up is you go along.

  • Shall we move on to our final please?

  • Let's move on.

  • It's our final headline is from CNN, and it says the cavern, our investigation waas a Sherrod Sherrod.

  • A situation or event which is false or misleading.

  • Correct.

  • So obviously, the author of this piece feels like the investigation into Judge Cavanagh was no done in a very good manner.

  • There was a degree of it being a misleading investigation.

  • There's an idea of something being pretend isn't there with this would be pretends a good one.

  • So regardless of if there was an investigation or not, the author probably feels that the conclusion Judge cavern are getting the job was always going to happen.

  • In their opinion, Yes.

  • Um, this would has two quite different pronunciations depending on where you come from.

  • Here in the UK, as we've been saying, we say, Sherrod, Andi, all of our stories today are about American politics that you're probably here.

  • Sure.

  • Asia raid in American English is the pronunciation there Now a good way to remember the meaning off.

  • This word is that there is a game.

  • There is a very famous game called rods for charades.

  • So if we're playing Siradze for charades and I would receive a card with the perhaps the name of a famous person and I would have to pretend to be this person, you don't speak.

  • But I'd be pretending, and I would have to get and you'd have to guess what?

  • Who I waas.

  • Yeah, okay.

  • In that game is called Sherrod.

  • So there's this idea off pretending connected.

  • It's not really too this would way.

  • We will now have our vocabulary.

  • Recap But of course, before that, we always have our social media challenge.

  • Now we had a question, um, about legal terms we did on DWI.

  • Put this out.

  • The accused man was put a on trial, be in trial or C at trial.

  • What's the correct answer?

  • And what was the response before the correct answer?

  • I'm going to tell you who got it right, Neil Instagram free forever.

  • Facebook.

  • Nazeer Mustafa on Twitter.

  • Malik Well done.

  • You will get it right.

  • The answer is the accused man was put on trial Option A.

  • Yes, well done to everyone who got that right now a recap, please of the vote can't a recap.

  • So we have on behalf off which means as a represent excuse me, which means as a representative off or instead off we have made up, which means imaginary or invented.

  • And we have Sherrod, which is a situation or event which is false or misleading.

  • 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 also, we have a nap.

  • You beat me to it.

  • We do have an app which you can download from the APP stores.

  • Thank you for joining us and Good bye.

  • Good bye room.

  • He's a 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.

Subtitles and vocabulary

Click the word to look it up Click the word to find further inforamtion about it