India's Covid nightmare: BBC News Review

Hello and welcome to News Review from BBC Learning English. I'm Neil.

Joining me today is Catherine. Hello, Catherine.

Hello, Neil. Hello, everybody. Yes, today we're covering a story

from India, which is in the grip of a devastating second wave of Covid.

If there's any of the vocabulary that you hear in this programme

you'd like to test yourself on,

  there's a quiz on our website at bbclearningenglish.com.

Let's hear more about that story from India from this BBC News report:

Yes. So, a devastating second wave of coronavirus is sweeping across India.

Hospitals are unable to cope with the number of patients requiring

treatment. A website has been set up for people to register for vaccines,

but it has crashed under the weight of demand.

It is thought that hospitals are unable to report the true number of

cases, so actually the situation may be even worse than is thought.

A truly terrible situation there in India.

Now, you've been looking at this story and you've picked out three

useful words and expressions that people can use to help them

understand the English being used to discuss this story.

Yes, we're looking at: 'choke', 'dragged its feet' and 'driving'.

'Choke', 'dragged its feet' and 'driving'.

So, let's have a look now at your first headline, please.

Yes, we're starting here in the UK with the BBC – the headline:

'Choke' – stop functioning because of being too full.

Yes, OK. So, this is a verb spelt: C-H-O-K-E – 'choke'.

And if you eat food that then gets

stuck in your throat and you struggle to breathe, you're 'choking'.

Now, that's the literal meaning: a blockage in your throat,

which means you cannot breathe.

What we're talking about here is a blockage in hospitals so they

cannot function. There are so many patients in Indian hospitals,

they're unable to perform their role properly.

So, even though 'choking' is connected to an inability to breathe,

which is one of the symptoms of Covid,

in this headline that is not the sense of 'choke' we're using.

No, no. It's about being unable to operate because of blockage. So, we

often use the word 'choke' to talk about traffic – a traffic situation.

If the traffic is 'choked' and we're using the passive verb there –

'is choked' – it means traffic isn't moving

because there is too much of it.

Yeah. Also, often used with 'up': the traffic is 'choked up'.

Yes, a phrasal verb – 'to choke up'.

Again, often used in the passive: 'to be choked up' means it's not

working because there's too much. It's overwhelmed.

Yeah. Now, 'choked up', as a phrasal verb, also has another meaning,

which is quite different. It's connected to emotions.

Yes, it is. Yes, if something...

somebody says something to you, usually complimentary,

that makes you feel like you're going to cry and you can't talk properly

because of emotion, you can say, 'I'm choked,' or, 'I'm choked up.'

Yeah. And you can often see people who are 'choked up' making

speeches at weddings, for example.

It's often at a wedding or sometimes a birthday party

or an acceptance speech; you see those actors at the Oscars

and they can't really speak properly because they're so emotional.

They're 'choked' or they're 'choked up'.

Another use of 'choke' is from the world of sport often.

So, for example, you might have a sports person who is way ahead in the

game – let's say a football team. They're winning 3–0 at half time.

And then maybe the pressure of perhaps winning gets to them

and they 'choke': they end up losing.

Yeah. And again, I think the idea is that, you know,

it's a blockage caused by – in this case caused by excitement

or emotion of possibly winning. So, if a sports person 'chokes',

they lose their lead and they end up losing the competition or game.

OK. Let's get a summary of that, please.

We have another story about this idea of something being 'choked' or

'choked up' – about the Suez Canal, haven't we Catherine?

We have, yes. 'Choked' in the sense of blocked

and to watch that story, just click the link.

OK. Let's have a look at our next headline.

Yes, we're now in the United States with CNN:

'Dragged its feet' – responded slowly.

Yes. A three-word expression this time.

First word: 'dragged' – D-R-A-G-G-E-D.

Second word: 'its' – I-T-S.

And the third word: 'feet' – F-E-E-T.

Now, if you 'drag' something, you pull it along.

It's usually on the ground. You don't have wheels. It can't move itself.

You just pull it. Now, if something has feet and you're 'dragging' it,

it means it's not using its feet or it's not using its feet properly.

Think of a time, Neil, when you have to take your children

home from the park and they don't want to go home.

They want to play in the park. How do they behave?

Yes. Well, strangely all of the energy that they had when they

were playing in the park seems to vanish quite quickly and they

don't want to even walk any more. And you almost have to 'drag'

them along the ground without them using their feet.

Exactly. So to 'drag your feet'. If something 'drags its feet', it

moves slowly because it's reluctant and it doesn't want to do something.

Now, this is a very informal and idiomatic expression,

but it's one that we use a lot.

The alternatives are slightly too formal sounding, aren't they?

Well, yes. You've got things like 'prevaricate'

or – what's the other one?

'Procrastinate'. 'Procrastinate', yeah.

And they mean the same thing, you know: not do something because –

or take a long time to do something because you don't want to do it.

'Drag your feet' can be used in a lot of different circumstances.

You can use it to talk about the kids coming home from the park.

But you can also use it to talk about governments, organisations not doing

things or doing things very slowly because they don't want to do them.

Yeah, usually things they should be doing.

Often, yeah.

Yeah. OK. Let's get a summary:

If you would like to see another story about Covid and vaccines,

and what's happening with them,

we have the perfect one for you, don't we Catherine?

We do. Just click the link and you can watch it.

Now, our next headline, please.

Yes, we're back in the UK with the Financial Times now – the headline:

'Driving' – pushing something in a certain direction.

Yes. One word now: D-R-I-V-I-N-G – 'driving'.

It's the continuous form of the

verb 'to drive' and you know what that means, don't you Neil?

Yeah. So, 'to drive' is to operate a car – to move the car

in a certain direction, I suppose.

Exactly. You make the car go in a particular direction.

If you 'drive' something, you make it move. There's an idea of control

and even force: you're obliging the car to do what you want it to do.

So, if we take that away from the car and just use it in a more – a wider

– sense, if you drive something, you make it happen.

Yeah. So, often used in terms of policy.

So, perhaps for a company or a government.

Yes. I mean, imagine a business that – it sells things in shops

and it decides to go online. You could say that whoever's

organising that change is 'driving' the business online, or you could

use it to say that customers are 'driving' a business online.

They're 'driving' the change because customers don't want to go to shops;

they now want to go online, so they are 'driving' the change.

Yeah. And we can use 'drive' with two different particles to

make two different phrasal verbs: 'drive up' and 'drive down' –

to do with increasing and decreasing.

Yes, exactly that.

So, you could say that coronavirus is 'driving airline ticket sales down'

and you could also say it's 'driving the use of masks up'.

Yes. We also see this used in a passive form to describe when

somebody is forced into a situation because of something negative.

They are 'driven' to something.

Yeah, yeah. This is often used when people do something they

don't really want to do. But it's as the result of some pressure.

So, you could say that, you know, all this work is 'driving me to drink'–

I'm drinking alcohol because of the pressure of work.

It's quite a common expression: 'to be driven to drink'.

That's right, yes. Or 'to be driven to insanity'

or something like that – something negative.

It's quite... yeah, a dramatic expression, actually. Yeah.

Yeah. OK. Let's get a summary:

Time now for a summary of the vocabulary please, Catherine.

Yes. We have: 'choke' – stop functioning because of being too full.

'Dragged its feet' – responded slowly.

And 'driving' – pushing something in a certain direction.

If you'd like to test yourself on the vocabulary,

there's a quiz on a website at bbclearningenglish.com.

And of course we are all over social media.

Thank you for joining us and please do try to stay safe.

Thank you and goodbye.

Bye.