Hello and welcome to News Review from BBC Learning English.
I'm Neil and joining me for this programme is Tom. Hello Tom.
Hello Neil and hello to our audience. Today's story is about the
start of the world's most famous tennis tournament: Wimbledon.
If you want to test yourself on any vocabulary that you hear today,
there's a quiz on our website at bbclearningenglish.com.
Now, let's find out some more about the start of
Wimbledon from this BBC News report:
OK. So, it's the start of the famous tennis tournament Wimbledon.
Last year, the tournament didn't happen:
there was no Wimbledon because of the Covid-19 pandemic. This year, only
half the normal amount of visitors are allowed to go to Wimbledon, but
they hope to be able to allow more visitors later in the tournament.
You've been looking at this story, checking out the various news and
sports websites to find some language that's useful. What have you got?
I have: 'washout', 'makes the most of it' and 'net gain'.
'Washout', 'makes the most of it' and 'net gain'.
So, let's start then with your first headline please, Tom.
Yeah. My first headline, Neil, is from Mail Online, here in the UK – it says:
'Washout' – event ruined by heavy rain.
Yeah. So, let's talk about 'washout'. OK.
So, yeah, 'washout' is all one word: W-A-S-H-O-U-T – a 'washout'.
It's a noun and it describes something completely ruined by the rain.
Yeah, and it's clearly made up by...
made up of two words put together: 'wash' and 'out'.
Now, most people know that 'washing' is connected to cleaning things.
This has got more to do with the,
sort of, volume of liquid – of water – hasn't it?
Yeah, I guess. I mean, if you think 'wash' – of
movement of water – then this water comes and 'washes' the event 'out'.
It puts it out of the picture. Yeah, so it creates a big problem.
Yeah. So, here we have it as a noun, 'a washout',
but there's also a verb – a phrasal verb version, isn't there?
Yeah. Unsurprisingly, the phrasal verb is 'wash out'.
Two separate words: that verb 'wash' and the particle 'out'.
So, we could say that Wimbledon could be 'washed out' by the rain.
You'd often see it with that participle form.
Yes. Yeah, or a wedding or something like that or, in fact,
I just got a notification from my son's cricket team saying that
tonight's game is 'washed out'. It is 'a washout': it's cancelled.
We could say a 'complete washout' or a 'total washout' as well.
We could use these, sort of, strong words with it.
There is one other meaning as well, Neil.
OK. Yeah. What's that?
Which is actually to do with cleaning: when you were a child,
did your mother ever tell you to 'wash your mouth out'?
Well, I know what you're going to say next, Tom,
but I never, ever used any bad language or swear words,
so this didn't happen to me, but I know it happened to you.
So, if we clean the inside of something with water,
we could say that we 'wash it out'.
Now, when I was a kid and I used to use bad language, my mother would
say to me, 'Thomas, go and wash your mouth out with soap and water!' You
know, go and clean your mouth and stop using it to say dirty things.
Obviously, Neil, that doesn't happen any more.
Absolutely. She did a good job because I've
never heard you use a bad word.
Maybe after this slide.
OK. Let's get a summary:
Heavy rain is, of course, an inconvenience for lots of people,
but for others it can be really, really serious.
We have a story about what heavy rain did in Australia, don't we, Tom?
Yeah, we do. And it uses that word 'torrential' from our last headline.
So, you can find out by clicking the link.
OK. Let's have a look at your next headline.
Sure! My next headline is from the New York Times in the USA – it says:
'Makes the most of it' – tries to enjoy something as much as possible.
Yeah. So, this expression, 'makes the most of it' – it's got
a third person 's'; we normally say 'make the most of it' – means try to
enjoy something as much as possible. It's an idiom, which means that
the meaning is separate from the individual meaning of the words.
And if you look at these words – 'make', 'the', 'most', 'of', 'it'
– they don't say... they don't tell us that much.
Though altogether, they have this meaning for the set phrase:
try to enjoy something as much as possible
Yeah. So, we can think about
often situations where things haven't gone exactly as you planned. So Tom,
you've probably had the experience of a summer holiday in the UK?
Yeah, very recently: a couple of weeks ago in Devon.
How was the weather?
Actually, it was beautiful.
It was not a 'washout', but there's always that chance.
Yes. And now I've... I remember a holiday I had
in Scotland a few years ago, where it rained all day, every day.
It didn't stop raining, but we made...
It was a 'washout'!
...'We made the most of it'.
You know, we still did the things we wanted to do:
we saw some beautiful countryside, bought some nice whisky in Scotland,
so we kept ourselves entertained. We 'made the most of it'.
Yeah. You can 'make the most of it'; another one, Neil,
is you can 'make the best of it'.
This is a different sort of variation – has the same meaning.
You could 'make the most of it', 'make the best of it'.
And 'it' is a pronoun so you could say,
'You made the best of your holiday.'
Time now for a summary:
So, talking about idiomatic language. We have a whole series on idioms
and the sort of English that people use in their everyday lives.
It's called The English We Speak. Where can our viewers find it, Tom?
They can, as always, they can click the link in the video description.
OK. Let's have a look at your next headline.
Next headline, Neil, from the Guardian back in the UK again.
It says – this is my favourite headline – it says:
'Net gain' – final profit.
Now, this is... this is fantastic, isn't it Tom?
There are a couple of jokes in here, what we call puns: plays with words.
There are a couple of puns, yeah. Before we look at the puns,
let's have a look at the actual meaning of 'net gain'.
So, 'gain': 'gain' can be a verb and it can be a noun.
It means what we receive, or it means to receive.
And if you run a business, the 'net gain' is, kind of, your final profit.
So, after you've paid your staff and paid your taxes and thought
about your costs, it is the profit that you have remaining.
It is your 'net gain' – pure profit.
Yeah. Often used in financial language and situations,
but there is a double meaning here, isn't there?
Yeah, there is, which is that
when you play tennis you of course use a 'net'.
Yeah. You try to avoid the 'net'.
You try... yeah, you avoid the 'net'
and you also – you play tennis on a 'tennis court'.
So, if we look back at the headline,
the writer of this headline – he's having a joke. 'To court the public'
means to be nice to the public and appeal to them. Obviously, it's an
excuse to use that word 'court' and it's an excuse to use the word 'net',
because we're talking about tennis. It's a very funny British headline.
Yes, and very typical of headline writers: they like to find these
words that have double meanings that, kind of, reflect on the story.
Yeah. So, anyway 'net gain' is the final amount of money that you
make if you are a business person. The opposite is a 'net loss'.
So, if you finish trading and you haven't made any money,
you've made a 'net loss'.
I'm, kind of, at a 'loss' as to what more I can say about this one, Neil.
OK. That sounds like it's the right time to get a summary:
Time now then, Tom, for a recap of our vocabulary please.
Of course! Today's vocabulary was:
'washout' – event ruined by heavy rain.
'Makes the most of it' – tries to enjoy something as much as possible.
And 'net gain', which is final profit.
If you want to test yourself on the vocabulary, please go to our
website bbclearningenglish.com. You can find a quiz there.
Don't forget also that we are all over social media.
Thanks for joining us and goodbye.
Bye.