Newspaper headlines use a lot of distinctive vocabulary. They usually prefer words that are shorter and sound more dramatic than ordinary English words.

Newspaper word	Meaning	Newspaper word	Meaning
Aid Axe Back (verb) Bar Bid Blast Blaze Boost Boss/head Clash Curb Cut Drama Drive Gems (noun) Go-ahead Hit (verb)	Help Cut, remove Support Exclude, forbid Attempt Explosion Fire Incentive, encourage Manager, director Dispute Restraint, limit Reduction Tense situation Campaign, effort Jewels Approval Affect badly	Key (adj.) Link Move Ordeal (noun) Oust (verb) Plea(noun) Pledge Ploy (noun) Poll Probe Quit (verb) Riddle (noun) Strife (noun) Talks (noun) Threat Vow Wed (verb)	Essential, vital Connection Step forward a desired end Painful experience Push out/ remove Request Promise Clever activity Election/public opinion survey Investigation Leave, resign Mystery Conflict Discussion Danger Promise Marry

A. Explain what the following headlines mean in ordinary English:

SHOP BLAZE 5 DEAD

MOVE TO CREATE MORE JOBS

GO-AHEAD FOR WATER CURBS

WOMAN QUITS AFTER JOB ORDEAL

POLL PROBES SPENDING HABITS

BID TO OUST PM

PRINCE VOWS TO BACK FAMILY

B. Many newspaper headlines in English attract readers’ attention by playing on words in an entertaining way. Match the headline to its story and explain the play on words in each case.

1. BAD BLOOD	4. FALSE IMPRESSIONS	7. FLUSHED
2. HAPPY DAYS?	5. HAPPY HAUNTING	8. HIGHLY EMBARRASSED
3. SHELL-SHOCKED	6. HOPPING MAD	9. ROUND-UP

A) A grandfather’s breathing problems were solved when doctors found four false teeth at the entrance to his lungs. They had been forced down his windpipe in a car crash eight years ago.

B) A 25-year-old terrapin is being treated for a fractured shell after surviving a 200ft drop.

C) A Shetland teacher has suggested labradors or golden retrievers could be used to control pupils in playgrounds.

D) A ghost society has been told not to scare off a friendly female apparition at a hotel.

E) Adults who have never quite grown up are to be offered school theme nights including uniforms, register, assembly and primary school dinners by a Nottingham hotel.

F) An ex-public loo in Hackney, East London, is to be sold for ₤76, 000.

G) A Whitby curate has attacked the resort’s attempts to profit on its connections with Dracula: ‘a pale-faced man with a bad sense of fashion, severe dental problems and an eating disorder’.

H) A toad triggered a police alert when it set off a new hi-tech alarm system.

I) Firemen had to scale a 30-foot tree in St Leonard’s, East Sussex, to rescue a man who was trying to capture his pet iguana.

KEY:

A.

1. Five people died in a fire in a shop.

2. Steps are being taken with the aim of providing more work for people.

3. Approval has been given to a plan to place restrictions on people’s use of water.

4. A woman resigned from her job after undergoing some kind of unpleasant experience there.

5. A public opinion survey has looked into how people spend their money.

6. An attempt has been made to remove the Prime Minister from his/her position.

7. The Prince has promised to give support to his family or to family values, in general.

B.

1g. Dracula was a vampire known for drinking blood. Bad blood is also an expression used to mean bad feelings between people. There will probably be bad blood between the vicar of Whitby and the people who are making a profit form the Dracula connections of the town.

2e. School days are often referred to as the ‘happiest days of one’s life’.

3b. Shell-shocked means traumatized or in a state of great shock. It is referring to how soldiers in the trenches in WW1 felt angry after they had been subjected to shells or bombs for a long time. Terrapins and tortoises have shells and they would certainly be shocked (in the medical sense) by falling from such a height.

4a. Dentists make impressions of teeth and false impressions is a common collocation used to mean incorrect impressions created by a person.

5d. This is meant to recall the phrase ‘happy hunting’. Haunting, however, is what a ghost does. An apparition is a kind of ghost.

6h. Hopping mad is a collocation meaning extremely cross. It is appropriate here as toads and frogs hop along the ground. Hopping mad is also no doubt how the police felt when they discovered they had been called out by a toad,

7f. A loo is a toilet and toilets flush. Flushed also means to have a pink colour in one’s skin because one is happy. It collocates strongly with the phrase ‘flushed with success’, as the people who have sold the toilet for such a large sum of money are likely to be.

8i. Highly embarrassed is a collocation meaning extremely embarrassed. It is doubly appropriate here as the man is so high up the tree that he has to be rescued by the fire brigade – certainly an embarrassing situation.

9c. Sheepdogs round up sheep. Labradors and golden retrievers are kinds of dogs and it is suggested that they should round up the children.

-English Vocabulary in Use /Upper-intermediate/

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