A warm welcome back to engVid. Today I'm presenting
a series of vocab and phrases to help you
understand what is happening in the news.
It's important to know what's going on in
the world, and if you can read a newspaper
in English then you will develop an enormous
sense of satisfaction because that will show
that your level of English is right up there.
Okay, let's start with "unethical". So, we can
see a shorter word within the longer word:
"ethic". Now, a person's ethics are the ideas
that they live by. So we say: "A code of ethics".
For example, to say please and thank you.
If you want to know more about this, then
perhaps watch my lesson on social etiquette.
Okay? It's to do with the kind of ideas and
beliefs a person has. If something is unethical,
then basically it means it's wrong, it's bad.
Evil's quite a strong word,
but it's along those lines.
"Illicit" is something banned, something not
allowed. So if a politician took some illicit
substances, then that would show that they had
been taking some drugs that are not legal
in the country they are in. Okay? "Illegal",
"illicit", a synonym would be: "illegal", "banned".
"Allegation", so we have a noun here. An allegation-I'll
just write in that that's the noun-is something
that someone said about something else. For
example, an allegation that Boris Johnson
has had an affair. Someone is saying that
Boris Johnson has had an affair. It doesn't
mean that they have had an affair, it just
means that someone is saying they have had
an affair. "An affair" is when
you cheat on someone. Okay?
"Alleged", okay? To allege, you are saying
the rumour, you are saying what you think
happened. "Alleged", so that is the past tense
version of the verb. "To allege" is the present
tense. But it's most often seen in the past
tense. "Journalists alleged that"... "Allegedly",
okay? So here's the adverb. "Allegedly Boris Johnson
has done this." It's not saying definitely.
It's saying it might
have happened.
Okay, "a disclosure". This is making a secret
public. Okay? So, Boris Johnson tells a friend
that he has been putting lots of money in a
bank account in Switzerland or in an offshore
bank account. The friend then is quite nasty
to Boris, because he makes the secret public.
He discloses some information. Okay? "Disclosure",
the noun; the verb, "to disclose". And if
we look a little bit more carefully there,
your prefix "dis" and the main part of the
word "close", so something is close and now
it is open. So we had a secret and now we
don't have a secret.
"Libel". "Libel" is a published fake statement
that damages someone's reputation. Okay? So,
who says "fake" a lot? Donald Trump. "Fake
news! That's fake news. Don't listen to him,
that's fake news." Okay? So, "fake" means
made up. So, libel, you can accuse someone
of libel if they write something
about you that is not true.
"To be embroiled in a scandal". So, "a scandal"
is something regarded, something thought of
as wrong which causes a public outrage. "Outrage"
is when we are angry. So the politician...
Let's just explain this word, sorry. "Embroiled"
means caught up in. I'll write that there.
"To be embroiled in a scandal", you're surrounded
by something that is making the public very
angry. And I've got quite a few examples
of those just to come in a moment.
A "P.R. disaster". So, the P stands for "public",
the R stands for "relations". If you work
in P... If you work in PR, then you are promoting
people all the time and you are saying: "This
person is fantastic dah-dah-dah-dah-dah-dah-dah".
But a P.R. disaster is when it goes into the
newspapers some bad press. "Bad press" is
something written that makes that politician
look bad. Not necessarily politician,
can apply to someone else.
Okay, "an abuse of power", "abuses of power".
So, our politicians have... We have voted
for them to make decisions to help run the
country. If they abuse, that means if they
do something bad with that power, then they
are using power for the wrong reason. Let's
think of an example. They... It would have
been an abuse of power if they were using
their position to make money on the side. So,
if they were taking deals from businesses
against the public good, that
would be an abuse of power.
This is about relationships: "to two-time".
Okay? So, generally in our society it's a
monogamous one, that means you're meant to
kind of be with one person. "Mono" meaning
one. But if you're two-timing, then the politician
or whoever it is, is seeing two at the same
time and maybe one is very upset about that.
So if a politician two-timed, that would be
a P.R. disaster. Not in France where the press seem
to sort of celebrate that kind of naughtiness.
In Britain it wouldn't
go down very well.
"Clandestine affair". So, a "clandestine affair",
"clandestine" means secret. "An affair" is
cheating. Okay?
What are other things that would result in a
P.R. disaster, that would be bad press for
the politician? Expenses fraud. So, "expenses",
your expense... Prefix "ex" meaning out. You
can... "Pence" is kind of money, so what you're
spending out. Now, politicians are allowed
to claim on expenses. What that means is if
they spend money doing their job they can
get some of that money back. But if they...
What fraud is, deception for financial gain.
Deception for financial gain, so what they're
doing is they are being... They are cheating.
They're saying: "I spent this to do my job",
but actually they didn't need to spend that
and they are fiddling the books. We talk about
"the books" is like a record of money, if
they are fiddling, they are making a mess
of, they are... They're playing a game to
get more money.
"An offshore hedge fund". So, "offshore" means,
you know, we've got the edge of Britain. Any
one of you who watched my video on food of
Britain knows that I'm not great at drawing
maps of the UK. So, "offshore", here's the
shore, it means the coast. If it's off the
shore then it's somewhere else. A hedge fund,
now, I'm no economist, but "a hedge fund"
is like some people working for you to make
more money. An offshore hedge fund is not
strictly legal because it avoids tax being
paid in this country. So, that's not going
to go down very well with our
people, so that's P.R. disaster.
"Cash for honours", now, at the end of David
Cameron's reign as Prime Minster of the United
Kingdom there was quite a lot of controversy...
Running out of space on my board. "Controversy",
when someone thinks it's bad. So David Cameron's
at the end of his... His time as Prime Minister
and he starts giving knighthoods: "Hello,
you are now Sir So-and-so, you are now Lord
So-and-so, you are now..." Okay? And he gives
these titles because those people have given
his party money. So that was called the "cash
for honours scandal". Okay? It's not very
fair that he's just giving these titles because
they have gave the Conservative Party money.
Now, from across the pond, over in America
we had the "Watergate scandal" which was to
do with President Nixon and there was an attempted
theft of his party headquarters that then
unwrapped this whole saga, which you can read
about in your own time. But it was called
the "Watergate". Now, if anything goes slightly
badly wrong, if anything's controversial...
Controversial, then we can add this suffix to
the end, we call it "something-gate". Something
else that happened to David Cameron was "pig-gate".
Now, someone wrote a biography about David
Cameron, alleging that he had performed something
strange with a pig, therefore we call that
pig-gate, because it was bad
press for David Cameron. Okay.
"Corruption", this is quite similar to the
idea of an abuse of power. If you are corrupt
then maybe you're taking money to do something
for someone else. So, "corruption" is your
noun, "corrupt" is
your adjective.
"Tyranny". Now, a "tyrant" is someone who
has lots and lots of power, and they don't
really listen to anyone else, so we're thinking
sort of Robert Mugabe, Idi Amin, they're people
who rule and kill and do anything they want
to maintain power. Okay? So that's your...
A reign of tyranny, and a tyrant is the person.
So, tyranny is kind of like the action, that's
the person.
"Nepotism". Now, this is where you keep it
in the family. So there's plenty of examples
of this all across the world, from the film
business, to politics, to business. This is
just where you have a family here, like: "Right,
now I pass it on to my son, now my son can
do this, now the daughter can do this, now
the grandson can do this." Up to you where
you see those examples.
Now, if something goes really badly wrong
in politics then that politician will have
to stop working and go out of the limelight. I'll
write that down. Why is it called "limelight"?
I've no idea, but lots of attention is on
them, and then suddenly they have to go and
live out in the countryside and put slippers
on and smoke a pipe. Now, in America, the
President could be "impeached", there could
be an "impeachment" where the president stops
being the president, but hopefully it's...
The politician works out that they should
stop and they decide before the people decide.
So, if they decide then they can "resign",
there can be a "resignation". So let's just
break up this word. Okay? So you can see the
word, so "signature", they're taking back
their signature. They did say: "Yes, hello,
I was President", and now
that has been taken away.
Do hope you have learnt some new words from today's
lesson. I think this would be an excellent
lesson for you to have a go on the quiz to try
and ground these words into your everyday
usage. And why not start picking up an English
newspaper, reading them? And some fantastic
ones out there, not just UK newspapers; America,
The Times of India, plenty of them around.
And you can read them online as well. Thank
you for watching today's video, and there
are other videos like this on this YouTube
channel, so do check them out. Thank you.
See you next time.
