Hello and welcome to News Review from BBC Learning English.
I'm Tom and joining me today is Catherine. Hi Catherine.
Hello Tom. Hello everybody. Today's story is
all about the Emmy Awards.
The Emmy Awards! And don't forget – if you want to test
yourself on the vocabulary that you learn today,
you need to go to bbclearningenglish.com to find a quiz.
Now, let's hear more about this piece from a BBC Radio One news bulletin:
Yes! So, the Emmy Awards have happened online this year – digital only.
Now, these are the big television awards, hosted in the United States, and the
comedy Schitt's Creek won no less than
seven awards, which is a record.
Seven awards – an Emmy record – incredible!
So, we've got three words and expressions you can use to talk about this story.
Yes, we have. We have: 'sweeps', 'win big' and 'a big night'.
'Sweeps', 'win big' and 'a big night'.
Catherine, let's have a look at your first headline, please.
Yes. We're starting in Canada today and the headline
from City News 1130 is:
'Sweeps' – easily wins everything that can be won.
That's right – 'sweeps' – S-W-E-E-P-S.
The pronunciation has a lovely 'e' sound in the middle. Tom, do us a demo!
'E' – 'sweeps'.
'Sweeps'. OK. Now, 'sweeps' is a verb.
Tom, what do you do – tell us – when your kitchen floor is dirty?
When my kitchen floor is dirty, Catherine,
I use one of these: I use a brush. And I use the brush to clean the floor.
Nice. The verb for using the brush to clean
is: 'to sweep'.
And – oh, is that a nice sweeping motion you're doing there?
Yeah, you can see it's a large – 'woomph' – strong motion to the side.
And every piece of dirt on your floor gets caught up in your brush, doesn't it Tom?
It does, yeah: it just takes it all up.
And, actually, is there a phrasal verb we can use here?
Yes, you can 'sweep up' the dirt on your floor.
So, 'sweep' – if you sweep something or you sweep something up,
you get all of it: nothing escapes.
And this is the idea of 'sweeps' in our headline.
If they swept all the Grammy [Emmy] Awards, they had all seven comedy awards – there was
nothing left for anybody else. So when we 'sweep' at an Awards – or we 'sweep' prizes,
it means we get all of them. There's nothing left for anybody else.
We sweep them up. We collect them all or we obtain them
all easily. Now, is this the same as the phrasal verb
'sweep away'? Are they related?
It's... they are related, but the meaning
is quite different. If you 'sweep away' the competition it means that
you win everything and nobody else gets anything else.
So, it's the same sort of meaning but 'sweep away' refers to
your opponents. When you 'sweep up' it refers to the prizes.
So, we could say they 'swept up' the prizes because
they 'swept away' the competition.
Exactly. Exactly. Great! Thanks Catherine.
Let's have a look at our summary slide:
And if you're enjoying the video, we have more videos about
cleaning vocabulary, don't we Catherine?
We do. Just click the link to watch. Click the link.
OK. Wonderful! Catherine, can we have our next headline, please?
Yes. Now, we're in the UK with BBC News – the headline:
'Win big' – to win many times or win a large prize.
That's right. Now, this is a two-word expression.
The first word: 'win' – W-I-N. The second word is big – B-I-G.
Now, we know 'big' as an adjective that we use before a noun,
but here it's an adverbial expression:
'win' is the verb, 'big' is the type of win.
So, it's an adverb here, 'big':
if you 'win big' it means you win everything that can be won.
Now, in the Emmys there were seven awards and the programme Schitt's Creek got
all of them, so they won really big.
So, Schitt's Creek got seven Emmy Awards. Do I need to win
seven things to win big, or do I need to win many things
if I want to win big?
Well, that's one way of winning big – if you win a lot of
competitions altogether, a lot of prizes in a competition – but if you just win
one prize, but it's a really big prize, that's another way you can win big.
And we use this expression a lot
with gambling. So if you gamble one dollar
and you win 10,000 dollars you can say you won big.
You won big. I could say... there's a noun phrase I can use to explain that,
isn't there, after I've won big?
Yes, you could say you had a 'big win' and that just means you won a lot,
or you won something really important, or you just
had a really – a win you were really happy about.
Have you ever had a 'big win' in anything, Tom? You must have done.
Have I ever had a big win, or have I ever won big?
I think I won a colouring competition at school once, when I was a child.
Nice! What was the prize?
I think it was a badge.
Oh, well that's a big win when you're seven years old. For a seven-year-old, that is a big win.
Excellent. OK. Thank you Catherine. Let's take a look at our summary slide:
Now, talking of big things that happened at award ceremonies,
something happened at an awards ceremony last year, didn't it Catherine?
Yes. That was a really big win for a couple of people there.
To find out what happened, click the link in the video. Click the link.
Great! Catherine, can we have your next headline, please.
Yes. Still in the UK – now with Sky News:
'A big night' – an important evening which is usually expected.
What can you tell us about this expression, Catherine?
Well, it's a three-word expression.
First word is: 'a'. The second word: 'big' – B-I-G.
And the third word: 'night' – N-I-G-H-T.
So, 'a big night' is a night where – an evening where
important things happen, usually because you know that they're going to happen.
It could be a wedding, it could be a birthday party,
an awards ceremony – but it's a night that's usually planned
where you put the dress on, or the tux on, and it's all exciting,
and sometimes quite expensive, and you remember it for a long time.
Yeah. I think this idea of planning is important.
So, Schitt's Creek would know that they were in the
competition because they had their suits on, etc.
But do we need to... do we need to expect something for it to be a big night?
Well, no. I mean you can have a big night
that you weren't expecting. You know, you go out
thinking a normal night has got... a normal evening will happen
and then something really unexpected happens.
But there's another way we can use the phrase 'big night'
and it doesn't mean that you get a wedding proposal, or a prize, or anything:
it actually means that you just have a big, big party.
A big night of partying.
Yeah. Lots of alcohol, lots of dancing, a very late night.
And you usually feel quite tired,
to say the least, the next day. It's a bit like...it's a bit like Neil's birthday
last year, wasn't it? That was a really big night.
That was a big night, yes.
I came home at three o'clock in the morning.
So a big night: an important evening which is usually expected,
or a big night of partying. Let's take a look at our summary slide:
Fantastic. Catherine, please could you recap the vocabulary from today's programme.
Yes. We had: 'sweeps' – easily wins everything that can be won.
We had: 'win big' – win many times or win a large prize.
And we had: 'a big night' – an important evening which is usually expected.
Remember you can test yourself on today's vocabulary
on the website bbclearningenglish.com and we are all
over social media as well. That's it from us today.
Thanks for watching. Bye.
Bye!