King Charles's Coronation: BBC News Review

The coronation of a king - Charles III is crowned.

This is News Review from BBC Learning English.

I'm Neil. And I'm Beth. Make sure you watch

to the end to learn vocabulary to talk about this story.

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and try the quiz on our website.

Now, the story.

Charles III has been crowned King of the UK

and other Commonwealth realms in a coronation ceremony.

Members of the Royal Family and senior politicians

from around the world attended. Various events took place

over the weekend, including a special concert  

and street parties. But not everyone has been celebrating.

Police controversially arrested anti-monarchy protesters on the day.

You've been looking at the headlines, Beth.

What's the vocabulary?

We have touching, wingman and bolts.

This is News Review from BBC Learning English.

Let's look at our first headline.

This is from The Guardian.

The Coronation review – immaculately rehearsed, touching and Shakespearean.

So, the headline is saying that the coronation was immaculately rehearsed

– that means practised until it was perfect.

But we are looking at 'touching' and 'touch', physically, is this.

What's the sense here, though?

Well, if you touch something physically,

then you feel it.

But if you touch something metaphorically, then

it is emotional, and that's the meaning of 'touching' here.

It's literally like a feeling reaches out and touches you.

And the headline is saying that the coronation was an emotional event.

That's right. And we can use 'touching' to describe other things.

For example, maybe your friend gives a speech

at graduation and you find it very emotional.

It's touching.

Yes. Perhaps you're reading a book about soldiers returning

from a war, meeting their families for the first time in a long time.

It's touching. It's emotional.

Let's look at that again.

Let's have our next headline.

This is from The Times.

Coronation concert:

I'll be your wingman, Tom Cruise tells King Charles – as it happened.

We're looking at 'wingman'.

It's made up of two parts –

'wing' and 'man'.

The first part, 'wing' is this.

That helps a plane or a bird fly. 'man' – we all know 'man'.

Put them together – 'wingman'.

What's the sense? Is it connected to flying?

It is. So, think of

a group of planes flying together. The 'wingman'

is the pilot that flies on the wing,

so behind and to the side of the other planes.

OK. So, it is the pilot that supports the other pilots

and support is the key to understanding this here.

So, Tom Cruise is basically saying that he would support King Charles.

Yes, exactly. And the reason that Tom Cruise says this is because he

played a pilot in the film Top Gun, and also King Charles

is a trained pilot. He was in the Royal Air Force.

But there's another meaning of 'wingman', isn't there Neil?

Yes. So, a 'wingman'

is a friend who supports another friend. For example,

you might be out with a group of friends and a male friend

in particular wants some support in trying to meet a partner.

That is a 'wingman'.

Let's look at that again.  

Let's have our next headline.

This is from Forbes.

Prince Harry shunned from Buckingham Palace balcony

and soon bolts for airport.

So, Prince Harry was shunned from the balcony -

it means he wasn't included.

We are looking at 'bolts', which is a verb,

but it might be useful to think of it as a noun.

A lightning bolt.

Yes, it's definitely helpful to think of that

because a lightning bolt is something that happens very quickly

and 'to bolt' as a verb means to leave or escape very fast.

Yes. And in fact Prince Harry did leave the Coronation very quickly

and there was some controversy about him attending at all.

Yes, there was.

Now, note in the headline, it uses the

preposition 'for' – 'bolts for' plus a place, in this case,

the airport, and we can also say 'bolt to' a place.

For example, you might bolt to the supermarket before it closes.

And 'bolt down' is also possible.

It means doing something in a hurry.

So, you could bolt down the stairs if you need

to leave your house quickly or bolt down your food

if you're really hungry

or you need to eat quickly.

Let's look at that again.

We've had 'touching' – emotional,

'wingman' – a supportive person and 'bolts' – moves quickly.

And if you enjoy learning English  with stories about the Royal Family,  

there's another episode of News  Review you can watch here.

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