Interesting Article: The Boston Globe – The Belsnickler cometh

Here’s an interesting article about various holiday traditions and regionalisms around the United States rooted in different European customs.

To read the article go to: http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2010/12/26/the_belsnickler_cometh/?page=1

Vocabulary in the News : The Wall Street Journal (Front Page from 3 November 2010)

Let’s look at some of the vocabulary found in the article titles. If you want to read each article on The Wall Street Journal webpage, click on the each title.

GOP Claims House in Huge Swing, Tea-Party Wave Creates New Dynamic in Washington and the States; Democrats to Retain Senate Despite Drubbing

• A swing is seat that hangs from ropes or chains and moves back and forth which is usually used by children. So you can imagine the illusion here of a swing. In politics, we this word to describe when one ruling party has been replaced by a new one. The term can be used to describe any change in emotion, idea, condition, etc, to another. For example, Spain was a very conservative and Catholic country but there was a swing away from traditional family values when the country allowed same-sex marriage. In Amsterdam, there is a swing in the government position on legalized marijuana which may cause coffee shops to close down in the future.

• A change in political parties in power at a national level can also be described as a wave or even a tidal wave. A wave of course is a raised line of water you find in the ocean or other body of water. Last night a Republican wave swept (past irregular form of ‘to sweep’ – balayer) across the country pushing Democrats out of power.
• The Majority Leader Harry Reid, despite the drubbing the Democrats received by the Republicans last night, surprisingly won his reelection in Nevada. If you received a drubbing, this means that you were severely beaten. This word is believed to have been possibly derived from the Arabic word darb which means a beating, particularly by a stick.

Unaligned Voters Tilt Rightward In Droves

• Voters who don’t identify themselves as Republicans or Democrats tilted rightward in this election. In other words, they favored the particular program or opinion of those running as Republicans. Literally, to tilt means to incline or to cause to slope to one side. For example, these slashes ‘///////’ all tilt to the right.  If these unaligned (or nonaligned) voters had favored the Democrats, we would have said that they tilted leftward. In any case, the election is over and the United States must now move forward and not backward.
• The headline also said that these independent voters favored the political right in droves. If people do something in droves, it means they do it in very large numbers.

How the Rout Was Won : Careful Plans, Timely Wave

• A rout is a term to describe the complete defeat of your opponent in a battle, competition or an election. The word is also a verb. For example, Spain won the FIFA World Cup after having routed the Netherlands.
• If something happens in a timely manner, it happens at the most suitable or proper time.
   

Vocabulary In the News : The Washington Times (Front Page from 01 November 2010)

Let’s look at some of the vocabulary found in the article titles. If you want to read each article on The Washington Times webpage, click on the each title.

• ‘Rhetoric heats up in homestretch, Partisans fire up troops for trench warfare’ – We often talk about political rhetoric during electoral campaigns or political debates. Rhetoric is the art of studying and the skill of using language effectively to persuade and convince the listener. It can also be used to describe language that is elaborate, pretentious and insincere. Now that we are in the homestretch, this rhetoric is becoming more intense. This expression is a sports term often used to describe racing. Well, political campaigns are referred to as races and thus such sports terms apply! If in a race you are in the homestretch, you are in the last turn of the racetrack heading towards the finish line.
• Now that we are getting to the end of the race, the partisans are firing up the troops, i.e. the voters for trench warfare. In other words, they are trying to motivate and inflame with enthusiasm the voters to come out and vote for them. It’s a fight to the finish and it will be a difficult and dirty one, just like trench warfare. World War I is the best example of this type of war!
• ‘GOP takeover would tighten gridlock on financial relief’ – A takeover is the act of taking control, management or responsibility for something, particularly when talking about power in a nation or in a business. The article states that if the Republicans takeover Congress, Obama’s plan for financial relief would face gridlock. This term is used to describe traffic that cannot move on the motorways because of some sort of problem. In political terms, it means a complete lack of progress. With Republicans in control of the House of Representatives, they are expected to block Obama’s political agenda causing gridlock.

Culture Spot : Wisconsin Wines

Taken from an article in The Wausau Daily Herald in Wausau, Wisconsin published on 11 July 2010.

To read the full article click on the image.

Wisconsin has always been nicknamed the Dairy State thanks to its dairy farms and cheese production but now the state is gaining ground for the other half of wind-and-cheese combo. Small home winemakers and their vineyards are popping up all over central Wisconsin and their wines are winning awards!

Amateur winemakers are attracted to this craft because it’s organic and they can control the alcohol level, the flavor and the sweetness.

Though the vineyard is a recent phenomenon in Wisconsin, winemaking is not. Other fruits, such as raspberries, blackberries, elderberries, plums and cranberries have found themselves in wines including such strange ingredients as carrots, dandelions and lilacs! Fruit winemaking kits are quite popular in the state. The fruit which is currently the most popular for making wine is the pomegranate!

The grapes used for winemaking come from hybrid vines such as the King of the North, a variety of the Concorde grape. Most vines are a cross between native grapes and wine-quality grapes specifically developed to survive the harsh northern winters in Wisconsin. Other problems are abundant such as disease and mildew, however Wisconsin’s wine industry is starting to thrive fed by the passion and creativity of home winemakers.

(I haven’t provided the vocabulary this time. Read the article and use your dictionaries to create you own lexicon on winemaking.)

LINKS

Wineries of Wisconsin

Wisconsin Cheese

Vocabulary In the News : Duluth News Tribune (Duluth, Minnesota) – 07 July 2010

Go to the Duluth News Tribune homepage

Drivers in Duluth, Minnesota are experiencing a new problem that they had not planned on due to work that began on a stretch of highway. When a problem seems to appear unexpectedly, we refer to this as a snag. In French you would refer to this as un pépin. Work on this segment of road, or stretch, is causing a traffic snarl. In other words, it complicates the movement of traffic making it difficult, if not impossible, to move.

When traffic moves slowly and you follow very closely the car in front of you and  there is also a car following you very closely in the rear, we call this bumper-to-bumper traffic. This is often experienced during  the morning and afternoon rush , when everyone is on the road going to and from work in the morning and evening. Your bumper is that long piece of metal or plastic attached to the front and back of your car to protect it if it hits or bumps anything.

Because of the road work, traffic has slowed down to a stop-and-go crawl. This of course describes the action of slowly moving forward in short movements while constantly having to brake in order to avoid hitting the car in front of you. During rush hour, traffic usually slows to a crawl.

When there are a lot of cars on the road due to the morning or evening rush,  we call this commuter traffic. A commuter is someone who travels to and from work by car, by train or by bus. Some American cities have tried to improve their traffic problems by putting in place HOV (high-occupancy vehicle) lanes. Usually this is the farthest lane on the left which is reserved for cars with 2 or more people in them. The HOV lane was designed to encourage carpooling, the act of sharing cars to get to and from work. If you are caught driving in this lane without passengers, you will get stopped and fined by the police. Some, however, have tried to trick the police by disguising a mannequin to appear as a sleeping passenger!

OTHER VOCABULARY FOUND IN THE TEXT

the interstate – an American term for the motorway or highway because they cross state lines.

northbound, southbound, etc.. (adj.) – moving towards the north, south, etc..

a motorist – someone who drives a car

an off-ramp – a road that leads off a huge highway (opposite = an on-ramp)

a block – an area of buildings in a city with roads on all four sides (un pâté)

pavement (American – uncountable) – the surface of the road (NOTE: in British English the pavement, now a countable noun, refers to the ‘le trottoir’)

an intersection – where two or more roads join or cross each other.

a curve – a bend in a road or river.

downtown – American English for the city centre

Read the complete article at http://www.duluthnewstribune.com/event/article/id/173144/

Vocabulary In the News : The San Francisco Chronicle – 30 June 2O1O

Read full text here!!

In San Francisco, sting operations are being conducted to curb the rise in bicycle theft due to a rise in commuting by such vehicles. A sting is a trick prepared by the police in order to nab the wrongdoer. If you curb an action, behavior or a situation, you try to take control of it and limit it. Commuting is the act of traveling (by means of a vehicle such as a bike, train or car) back and forth between your home and place of work. When you commute, you’re called a commuter.

 

The police are working with cycling advocates, people who strongly support the use of bicycles, to nab these criminals. You don’t want to get nabbed by the police because this means you’ve been caught and arrested by them. To catch the criminal, they are placing a transponder in decoy bikes placed in various hot spots around the city. By doing this, they will be able to not only track the thief (pl. thieves), but also find the buyer and the seller. If you track something (or someone), you follow its course.

 

OTHER VOCABULARY ON THE FRONTPAGE

stock	une action (titres d’une société)
a pill	un comprimé, un cachet
to draw ire	provoquer la colère
to bust a myth	faire s’effondrer un mythe
to debunk	déboulonner

Vocabulary In the News : 08 March 2010 – The Arizona Republic (Phoenix, Arizona)

In Paradise Valley, Arizona’s premiere tourist destination thanks to the 12 resorts located there, special room deals and freebies are the spring-season staples. These special prices are luring back sun-seekers and golfers in droves reversing the downward trend that is a result of the sluggish economy. Full story >>

to pay off	-	if something that you do pays off, it brings you some benefit or advantage
premiere (pronounced – Pre-MEERE)	-	first, principle, most important
a room deal	-	promotions offered by hotels
a freebie	-	something given to you that you don’t have pay for
a staple	-	a regular and important part or feature of something
to lure	-	to persuade someone to do something by making it look very attractive
in droves	-	large numbers of people
sluggish (adj.)	-	not performing or reacting as usual, not moving quickly

Vocabulary In the News : 06 March 2010 – The Journal (Newcastle, UK)

The main story from the front page concerns the tragic story of an ex-lawyer whose life was destroyed because he hit the bottle after the breakup of his marriage.

Jimmy Grogan descended into a downward spiral of alcoholism as his life careered out of control before hitting rock bottom. He lost his lucrative job as a lawyer and his alcohol addiction trapped him in a vicious circle of crime causing him to appear in courts but no longer as the lawyer but as the criminal.

Unfortunately, he is now crippled with pancreatitis and chronic liver disease and his doctors have given him only a few months to live. With his remaining days, Mr. Grogan has decided to speak out about his alcoholism and warn others about the devastating effects of turning to the bottle. Full story >>

 

 

 

 

to hit the bottle	-	to start drinking a lot of alcohol
to descend into a downward spiral	-	to deteriorate, to slowly be destroyed, to decline
to career out of control	-	to be in a situation in which you loose control because things are happening quickly
to hit rock bottom	-	to arrive at the lowest possible level
a vicious circle	-	a process in which the existence of a problem causes other problems, and this makes the original problem worse
crippled	-	physically disabled, severely damaged
to speak out	-	to state your opinion firmly and publicly about something, especially in order to protest against or defend something
to turn to the bottle	-	to start drinking alcohol in an attempt to help yourself when you are having difficulty dealing with a situation

Note: most definitions for vocabulary on this blog are taken or adapted from www.macmillandictionary.com

Vocabulary In the News : 03 March 2010 – The Garden Island (Lihu’e, Hawaii)

The main headline tells the story of fire that started in a work shed partially attached to a home. The fire spread and scorched the home. If something is scorched by fire, it isn’t completely destroyed; it is burned enough to change the color and damage the surface. Full story >>

In another article, the state of Hawaii isn’t satisfied with a federal law that was designed to protect the state’s endangered species stating that the penalties aren’t serious enough. Hawaii’s state senate passed a bill that would make the intentional killing of a Hawaiian monk seal a felony with a penalty of 5 years in prison and a fine of up to $50,000. Under federal law, it is only a misdemeanor with a one-year prison term and a fine of up to $2,500. Under English common law on which the American legal system is based, a felony is a serious crime such as a murder or robbery, a misdemeanor is simply a less serious crime. Full story >>

Members of the Democratic Party on the Hawaiian island of Kaua’i caucused to choose delegates that would represent them in state and county conventions in April. “To caucus” is a political term simply meaning to meet in group to discuss plans. For example, in the US Senate, the two main political parties are Democrats and Republicans but there is one senator who is socialist and another who is independent. Because these two senators’ political beliefs lean to the left and they often vote with the Democrats, they caucus with the Democrats which gives the left control of 59 seats out of 100 in the Senate. The noun is the same as the verb. A caucus is a closed meeting of a group of persons from the same political party or faction that is designed to either select candidates or to decide policy. Full story >>

Vocabulary In the News : 27 November 2009 – Daily Record (Parsippany, New Jersey)

To visit the homepage for the Daily Record, go to :

 http://www.dailyrecord.com/

Joann Tyler, president of Missionaries of God, a nonprofit charitable group that helps feed the homeless, risked receiving a summons from the city of Dover for feeding the homeless a Thanksgiving meal from the back of a truck. Dover has already served Ms. Tyler a dozen summons in the past for giving food to the homeless without a license. The city is concerned with public health and the handling of food. A summons is an official document that orders someone to appear in a court of law.

A helping is the amount of food served to one person during a meal. At a huge dinner after you have eaten what is on your plate, you may want to eat more. If so, you might help yourself to a second helping. Perhaps you wouldn’t have had that second helping if you first had had a heaping helping! Heaping here means a lot or very full especially when we talk about something that can be piled. For example, let’s say you like ice cream so much that when you serve yourself a helping of ice cream, you give yourself a very large portion of ice cream. We would say you served yourself a heaping portion of ice cream.

To learn more, read the article :

http://www.dailyrecord.com/article/20091127/COMMUNITIES/311270004/Thanksgiving-for-Dover-needy

Vocabulary In the News : 8 November 2009 – Richmond-Times Dispatch (Richmond, Virginia)

Visit the Richmond-Times Dispatch

Sniper John Allen Muhammad is slated to be executed by injection Tuesday in the state of Virginia for the slaying of Dean Harold Meyers in October of 2002. If you say something is slated, this means it is arranged or scheduled to happen at a particular time or date. A slaying is the act of killing someone. It comes from the irregular verb ‘to slay’ (slay, slew, slain).

Muhammad unleashed terror in Virginia, Maryland and Washington D.C. in 2002. In other words he did something that had a very powerful and harmful effect on those regions! Here’s another example of this word’s use: “The passing of the health bill in the House of Representatives will unleash a storm of criticism by its opponents.”

He led a 2-man sniper team that claimed the lives of 10 people. To claim the life of someone means that something or someone causes the death of someone. For example, the H1N1 flu virus has claimed the lives of children in France and the United States. AIDS (SIDA) has claimed the lives of millions of people around the world and Hitler’s holocaust claimed the lives of millions of Jews during WWII.

Mr. Muhammad and his teenage partner in crime left a twisted trail of death behind them. To twist means to bend or turn into different shapes.  If a road is twisted, there are a lot of turns and thus is not a straight road. However, another meaning of twisted means behaving in a strange and and/or cruel way. We could say that Muhammad had a twisted mind. You might recognize this word from the American heavy metal band, Twisted Sister.

To read more, go to : http://www2.timesdispatch.com/rtd/news/local/crime/article/EXEC08_20091107-222006/304396/

In The News : French Babies Cry With a French Accent !

Who would have thought that infant babies cry according to the melody and sounds of their parents native language !

For those of you interested, here’s a link to a November 6 article by Hannah Devlin in The Times (UK) newspaper entitled ‘Study shows unborn babies cry in their mother tongue.’

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/science/biology_evolution/article6905544.ece

This time, it’s up to you to do the leg work and look up the vocabulary you don’t know!

Vocabulary In the News : 6 November 2009 – The Times (UK)

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/

Sex education in the United Kingdom will soon be made mandatory for all 15-year-olds. In other words, these teenagers will be legally obliged to take one-year of sex and relationship lessons. Another common synonym for this word is compulsory.

This decision has prompted fury from religious groups who believe this contravenes parental rights. This means that if enacted, they believe the  decision  would violate parents’ rights to educate children according to their beliefs.

If students opt out on religious grounds, it will be considered as truancy and the students may be punished by the school. If you opt out of something, you decide to not participate or not take part in something. Opting out on religious grounds means to not participate because of religious reasons. Here’s another example of the phrase: In France it is illegal to discriminate against someone on the grounds of religion, race, sex, age or sexual orientation.

Students who decide to not attend these lessons on the grounds of religious beliefs will be punished for truancy which means they are absent from class without permission. Any student skipping class is said to be truant. In the UK, Canada and the US, there are police officers or other designated officials who are authorized to arrest truant students and take the child to school. These officers or officials are called truant officers.

Read the original article at : http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/education/article6905543.ece

Learn more about truancy at :  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Truancy

Vocabulary In the News : 4 November 2009 – The Record (Hackensack, New Jersey)

Visit the newspapers homepage at: http://www.northjersey.com

The top headline of Wednesday’s front page from concerned Tuesday’s election results for the state of New Jersey. New Jerseyans went to the polls on Tuesday to elect a governor as well as other state positions. If you go to the polls, you go vote at polling station you are registered at.

The race between incumbent Governor Corzine and Republican candidate Chris Christie was very close but in the end, Christie managed to sway the majority of voters in his favor. To sway literally means to swing move gently from side to side but it can also mean, as in the front page headline, to influence or change someone’s opinion. You could also say that Christie’s campaign and program for New Jersey held sway (to hold sway – irregular verb) over the voters of New Jersey. Another way of saying this is that the voters fell under Christie’s sway and elected him governor.

Read more at: http://www.northjersey.com/news/governorsrace2009.html

In an opinion article also found on the front page, the author states that the GOP (Grand Old Party – the other name for the Republican Party) is rudderless no more. A rudder is a flat piece of wood or other material in the back of a boat that is moved to change the direction the boat travels. Idiomatically, if we say a group or organization is rudderless, we say that they lack a clear aim, purpose or direction. The GOP in New Jersey now has the governorship in a state that is traditionally a Democratic bastion and is no longer rudderless.

Read more at : http://www.northjersey.com/news/opinions/political_stile/State_GOP_is_rudderless_no_more.html

Vocabulary In the News : 1 November 2009 – The Southtown Star (Tinley Park, Illinois)

http://www.southtownstar.com

This unfortunate lady was robbed while mourning at her father’s gravesite. When you mourn, you feel extremely sad because someone has died.

Mrs. Koenig was another victim in a string of robberies by thieves who have the gall to steal from mourners who are paying their respects to loved ones. When we say that someone has the gall to do something, we say they have an attitude towards other people that shows a lack of respect or care for their needs.

Speaking of respect, to pay your respects means you honor someone by going to their funeral or visiting their grave. On All Saints’ Day on the 1st of November, many French pay their respects to deceased family members by visiting their graves. Unfortunately while paying her respects, Mrs. Koenig’s purse was snatched out of her vehicle in which her elderly mother was waiting. To snatch means to quickly steal something from someone.

To read more, go to http://www.southtownstar.com/news/1856344,110109cemetery.article

Vocabulary In the News : 29 September 2009 – Daily Press (Hampton Roads, Virginia USA)

Click on the image for a larger view of the front page. To visit the homepage of the Daily Press, go to : http://www.dailypress.com/

- A dead, 25-foot humpback whale recently beached near Gloucester Point in the York River in Virginia. A lot of onlookers (des spectateurs) are braving the stench to take look at the dead whale. The headline uses a play on words with ‘whale.’ Because the odor is very bad, they say that there’s a whale of a stench. Because the whale is the largest creature on earth, we sometime idiomatically use the word in the expression ‘a whale of’ to mean large, big, a lot of or great. So, when it says there’s one whale of a stench, it means it smells very, very bad! Take a look at other example sentences using this expression :

- It was a wonderful party! We had a whale of a time this weekend!

- That was a whale of test; it was very difficult.

- Chicago will take on a whale of a project if they are accepted as host city for the 2016 Olympic Games.

http://www.dailypress.com/news/gloucester-county/dp-local_whale_0929sep29,0,6242341.story

Vocabulary In the News : 24 September 2009 – The Guardian (London, England)

Click on the image to view a larger version of the front page. To visit The Guardian’s webpage, go to: http://www.guardian.co.uk/

- If you snub someone, you insult them by ignoring or being impolite to them. Apparently, British Prime Minister Brown was snubbed in New York by President Obama. It has been revealed that the prime minister was given the cold shoulder by Obama when the president spurned five requests for bilateral meetings. In other words, Obama refused to meet with Brown and turned away his requests.

One of the reasons for the snub began several weeks ago when the Scottish government released the Lockerbie bomber. The White House disapproved of how No 10 handled the situation.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/sep/23/barack-obama-gordon-brown-talks

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In response to this news, Prime Minister Brown has denied that President Obama snubbed him. Watch this video from Sky News.

Brown Denies Reports Of Obama Rift

Gordon Brown has been forced to deny reports of a rift (un désaccord)with Barack Obama. It had been claimed that the US President had rejected five approaches for a meeting with the Prime Minister. Mr Brown has been speaking to Sky's Andy Bell.

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On the BBC “Have Your Say” where the public can express their opinion, the following question was asked for discussion.

Is the US distancing itself from Britain?

Repeated requests from Britain for a formal meeting with President Barack Obama fell on deaf ears (tomber dans l’oreille d’un sourd) in the US. Is the "special relationship" cooling?

Requests from Downing Street for official talks were turned down with both camps denying it amounts to a snub. Instead the US president had private meetings with leaders from Russia, China and Japan.

Gordon Brown was able to have a wide-ranging (ample, étendu) discussion with the president. However, it has emerged this was a conversation in a kitchen after a meal at the United Nations.

Has the special relationship changed following the release of the Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi? Should Obama be focusing on developing relations with other leaders? Do you think this is just a storm in a teacup (une tempête dans un verre d’eau) ?

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So what do you think? Leave your opinion to these questions (in English of course!!) by clicking on the comment button at the bottom of this post.

 

Vocabulary In the News : 21 September 2009 – The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

For a larger image, click on the front page. To visit The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, go to: http://www.ajc.com.

- Hospital emergency rooms in Atlanta are bracing for an onslaught of patients with flu-like symptoms. If you brace for something, you are getting yourself ready physically or mentally for something unpleasant. It’s what you would do with your body while driving if your car was about to hit or be hit. Here, emergency rooms are preparing for an onslaught, or a large number of people that all come at the same time. Another way of saying this is they are preparing for a surge of people. Because of fears concerning the H1N1 flu, more people are flooding emergency rooms. Most of these cases are simply due to the seasonal flu.

http://www.ajc.com/news/atlanta/atlanta-ers-brace-for-142731.html

- City employees for the city of Atlanta wanting to lose weight are part of an intensive fitness boot camp being led by an Atlanta city detective and former US Marine. The term boot camp is a military term for the initial intensive training all soldiers must do when they join the military. Here the term is used because it is an intensive program three times a week. During the workout (l’entraînement physique), the workers are feeling the burn! This is common expression used during a workout to describe that feeling in your muscles as they are being challenged and becoming fatigued! As we also say, “No pain, no gain!”

Unable to find article link

- Due to an overpopulation of dogs across the state of Georgia and the rest of the South, thousands of animal shelters are being forced to euthanize thousands of dogs not claimed by their owners. So many of these “Dixie” dogs are being adopted by yearning Northerners where strict and obligatory neutering laws have created a demand for pets. Dixie, as most you might know, is an old nickname for the Southern United States. Volunteer pilots, with the goal of saving 5,000 dogs by Sunday, are flying these dogs north where people yearn for them. The term is a bit strong here in this headline but if you yearn for something, you want it a lot but risk not getting it. Some couples yearn to have a baby but have difficulties conceiving one. Some people yearn for the love of another who doesn’t love them.

http://www.ajc.com/news/georgia-dogs-adopted-by-142702.html

Vocabulary In the News : 16 September 2009 – Arizona Daily Star (Tuscon)

Click on the front page image to view a larger size. To visit the homepage of the Arizona Daily Star, go to : http://www.azstarnet.com/

- Health authorities in Arizona are telling citizens not to jump to the conclusion (conclure prématurément) that they have the HIN1 influenza virus just because they feel yucky. The new virus is respiratory and not intestinal. The informal word yucky is used to describe something that is dirty, ugly or unpleasant. When it’s cold and rainy outside, you can say, “What yucky weather!” So if you have a yucky feeling or you feel yucky, you feel sick.

- When they say that the feeling is 'widespread,’ this means that flu activity is at peak level; several counties across the state are reporting flu cases. Widespread is an adjective that means something is happening in many places and affecting a lot of people. Example sentences :

At the end of the last presidential campaign in the US, Obama had widespread support among Democrats.

Authorities are concerned about the widespread use of cannabis among teenagers.

Flooding has been widespread in the state due to heavy rains.

Note : Registration needed on the site to read the entire article.

Vocabulary In the News : 8 September 2009 – New York Post & The Chronicle

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 a pullout 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!

To find out more, go to: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/regional/graft_shocker_3FyDTCePvamziXbKSCeOZL

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.

http://www.kcchronicle.com/articles/2009/09/07/08112864/index.xml

Front pages taken from : http://www.newseum.org/todaysfrontpages/

To learn more about the above political controversy swirling around President Obama’s speech to schoolchildren, watch the following video from www.newsy.com.

To view the video at Newsy and to access the transcript, go to : http://www.newsy.com/videos/obama_in_the_schools