Newspaper Headlines

Vocabulary

1. Certain words are found in newspaper headlines sometimes with a different meaning from that of their normal use. For each of the following “headline words” on the left, find an item on the right with the same meaning (it will help you look at the headlines in exercise 2 below).

1. AXE fire

2. BID close down, dismiss (usually for economic reasons)

3. BLAST conflict, disagree(ment), fight, fighting

4. BLAZE diplomat

5. CLASH exciting or dramatic event

6. CURB attempt

7. DRAMA explosion

8. ENVOY affect badly

9. HIT vote, election, public opinion survey

10. POLL reduce, reduction, limit

11. PROBE investigate, investigation

12. QUIT question, interrogate, interview

13. QUIZ reduce drastically

14. RIDDLE leave, depart, resign

15. SEEK attract, interest, win the support of

16. SLASH look for, want, ask for

17. STORM mystery

18. TOLL marry

19. WED angry argument

20. WOO total number of dead

2. In headlines, as well as special vocabulary being used, some words (a, the, some, be, been etc.) are often omitted, abbreviations are common, and verb tenses are sometimes used differently. Explain the following headlines in simple English.

e.g. UK TO SEND MORE AID TO GHANA

The United Kingdom is going to send more help to Ghana.

1. ARMY AXES 3 BASES, 3,000 MEN

2. BID TO REACH NORTH POLE FAILS

3. HOTEL BLAST KILLS 8

4. ANIMALS DIE IN ZOO BLAZE

5. US, RUSSIA CLASH OVER ARMS CURBS

6. 3 SAVED IN FLATS BLAZE DRAMA

7. ENVOY ACCUSED OF SPYING

8. TOURISTS HIT BY PILOTS’ STRIKE

9. PM ANNOUNCES MARCH POLL

10. POLICE PROBE MISSING WOMAN RIDDLE

11. TOP SCIENTIST QUITS UK FOR US

12. 3 QUIZZED OVER BOY’S KIDNAP

13. FILM STAR SEEKS DIVORCE

14. AIR FARES SLASHED TO WOO HOLIDAY MAKERS

15. STORM AT UN OVER “SPIES”ACCUSATION

16. EARTHQUAKE TOLL REACHES 27

17. ACTOR TO WED FOR FIFTH TIME

Part three the campaign trail

In a democracy, the country’s rulers and law-makers are chosen in elections. In American English, candidates run for election and in British English they stand for election.

The campaign is the series of advertisements, television appearances, meetings and speeches designed to get support for a candidate. The expression campaign trail emphasises the number of places candidates have to go to and things they have to go through while campaigning.

Campaign also refers collectively to all the parties’ campaigns.

The run-up to an election is the period leading up to an election, perhaps a longer time than the campaign itself.

If Mahatma Gandhi came back to life and stood for election in the eastern Indian state of Bihar, he would probably lose.

Mrs. Thatcher hoped most of them were against a federal Europe. ‘Otherwise what’s the point of standing as candidates in the next general election?’

Vargas Llosa, who constantly glances backwards into his own life or into the dark recesses of his continent for his fiction, is preoccupied by ‘something larger than politics’. Coming from a man who, in 1990, ran for president in Peru, and lost, this seems hard to take.

He is hurt by the perception that he is afraid to face his opponent. He is followed on the campaign trail by people dressed in chicken costumes.

There are ten weeks to go to the election, yet we are already mind-numbingly bored with the campaigning.

Shots were fired and explosives thrown into the offices of two political parties in Tiblisi in what the BBC Moscow correspondent describes as the increasingly violent run-up to elections next month.

Task 1. On the campaign trail

Match the two parts of these extracts.

1. The Colombian election campaign,

2. Whatever the political and economic situation,

3. It’s been so long since the last election that we’re forgotten how difficult it is

4. The tribunals would disqualify those found guilty

5. Senator Garn told a press conference at the Utah state capital that

6. Elected for six years, Mexican presidents

7. When Lincoln ran for his first election,

1. from standing for election for a period of up to seven years.

2. are barred from standing for re-election.

3. due to culminate in a presidential poll on 27 May, has become more a matter of physical survival than political persuasion.

4. he will not run for re-election next year.

5. it was not as the Republican candidate.

6. the party in office has always gained support in the run-up to the election.

7. to avoid media coverage of the campaign trail.