The headline of this article has some great idiomatic expressions that come from fishing terminology. Let’s first look at “What a catch!” Of course the meaning is clear because when you go fishing, you want to catch fish. If you catch or someone else catches a nice, big fish you would say, “What a catch!” You can also use this expression to describe someone’s partner. If a friend of yours found a really nice boyfriend, girlfriend, husband or wife you would tell them the say thing! Of course if they unfortunately lose them, you could say “There are other fish in the ocean.”
When you fish, you hope to catch a fish on your hook. However, the headline states that some young New Yorkers are also hooked. If you are hooked on something, you are really interested or attracted to it and you want to do it as much as possible. These guys are hooked on fishing. This expression can also be used to describe an addiction that you can’t stop such as being hooked on drugs.
Angling is the sport of catching fish. When you fish, you hope to catch a fish on the line when it bites your hook. Of course, while reeling in your fish, you could lose it! For these New York fisherman, they are putting their angling skills on the line. If you put or lay something on the line, you put something at risk. The young New Yorkers are risking their reputations as good fisherman. When our soldiers go on mission into a combat area, they put their lives on the line for us.
For a downloadable pdf format of this front page, go HERE. To visit the homepage of the US edition of Metro, go to : http://www.metro.us/us/home/
- Lest is a conjunction in English that is used to say that if we don’t do something, there is a possible negative or unpleasant outcome. You could replace lest with ‘for fear that.’ Take a look at these sentences:
Helen turned the radio down lest she should miss the phone ringing. (Macmillan dictionary)
Stay out of sight, lest we be discovered! (notice the use of the English subjunctive here!)
The editors of the Metro are saying that if we don’t remember and commemorate all those who died and sacrificed their lives on 11 September, we risk forgetting the significance and importance of that day.
NOTE! I apologize, link to images and PDFs became inactive over time.
If you’d like a more readable version of this front page(pdf format), go HERE! For the newspaper’s homepage go to :http://www.nypost.com/
- If you have apullout in a newspaper or magazine, then this means that there is a thin book that you can keep after you have thrown the newspaper or magazine away. In this case, they have included a short 20-page booklet as a NFL 2009 guide.
-A bribe is the money or present that you give to someone to help you do something dishonest or illegal. The act itself is called bribery, which is considered a crime. In the article which you can read at the link below, several city inspectors with links to powerful crime families were taking bribes in order to overlook violations in city construction codes. These inspectors were lining their pockets when the mob bribed them.
- Other city building inspectors were involved in a drug scam. This is when you follow a dishonest plan or trickery in the hopes of making money. In this situation, some inspectors were using the constructions sites as places to deal in illegal drugs. The word is also a verb. For example, you have all gotten those spam emails from some poor widow of a dead African official who has inherited a lot of money and needs help getting it out of the country or some other sad story so she has contacted you to help her and in the process, you’ll earn some of that money! Well, whoever sent you that email with the phony story is trying to scam you out of your money. Some scammers are so good at scamming and appear legitimate that we would call them a scam artist.
- The sub headline states that there is a mob taint on the construction inspectors. In other words, the whole situation appears to have a connection to the mob; it has the appearance of corruption. It gives the idea that the situation smells or is possibly infected by the mob. The word also exists as a verb. In the United States during an important court case such as in the OJ Simpson trials, the jury was kept hidden and they were not allowed to watch television during the trial because no one wants outside influences to taint or corrupt the jury. We want them to make an honest decision based only on the facts in the case and not from what is being said on television by the media. Here’s another example of how we can use this verb. Imagine you are walking in the country enjoying the fresh air when all of sudden you pass by a farm and you smell the cows! You could say that the air is tainted by the smell of cow manure. In other words, it added a quality to the air that made it unpleasant!
If you’d like a more readable version of this front page(pdf format), go HERE! For the newspaper’s homepage go to : http://www.kcchronicle.com/
I’d like to take just one expression from the front page of the Geneva, Illinois newspaper The Chronicle, because it’s a good idiomatic expression.
- If you walk a fine line, this means that you have to be careful about what you say or do because you might offend, anger or annoy someone. You have to treat a situation with great delicacy. Alternatively, you can also say, to walk a thin line.
The headline on the front page is referring to a speech that President Obama made to school children yesterday afternoon. The President has been accused by conservatives of using his speech to spread propaganda in the classroom. To find out more, read the article by clicking on the link below.
To learn more about the above political controversy swirling around President Obama’s speech to schoolchildren, watch the following video from www.newsy.com.
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