BA flight to Germany goes to Scotland: BBC News Review

This is News Review from BBC learning English hello and welcome to news of you the

show where we show you how to use the language from the latest news stories in

your everyday English I'm Dan and joining me this morning is Tom hi Tom

hi dad good morning and hello to our audience wherever you are so what's the

story tom today's story Dan is about a very bad journey a very bad journey that

sounds intriguing ok so let's hear more from this BBC

Radio 4 news report British Airways flights from London to düsseldorf are

supposed to take just 1 hour and 20 minutes making it a trip to the city

easier and more attractive than ever according to its website but passengers

who boarded one early morning service took the scenic route when the pilot

mistakenly flew to Edinburgh so the story a plane left London it was going

to fly to düsseldorf and it was supposed to arrive in Germany 1 hour and 20

minutes later however the plane didn't arrive because they went to Scotland

instead the pilot landed in Edinburgh by mistake because he got lost that's quite

an interesting story Tom thank you very much for sharing ok so you've been

looking around it's three words and expressions that we can use to talk

about this story I have our three words today baffled blunder and stifle baffled

blunder and stifle okay can we have your first headline there of course we can my

first headline is from rt.com it says I blame brexit passengers

baffled as be a flight to Germany somehow ends up landing in Scotland

baffled completely confused it's a nice word Tom what can you tell us about it

it's an adjective the adjectives say for I am baffled

I am completely confused and it's an extreme adjective as well so we wouldn't

say very baffled the adverse would user completely baffled totally baffled

utterly baffled exactly yeah yeah perfect

okay you said it was Edie yes is that significant well we can also use it in

an ING for with adjectives as the adjectives it

gives us the feeling so if I am baffled I am completely confused if something is

baffling it makes me completely confused yeah I know something is quite baffling

something that so it certainly makes me feel baffled every time I hear about it

it's Neal's idea you heard about this you know the one English for cats yes

yeah it's yeah it's baffle it is a bit baffling I was real baffled when I hear

it yeah I mean like cats don't speak English for a start so hmm I could use

the verb form or do please and say it baffles me baffles yeah okay so we have

a verb - yeah if something battles you it confuses you or it extremely confuses

here makes you very confused like cryptic crosswords Tom cryptic

crosswords baffle me they make me so confused I've no idea how to do them and

of course we often use it in the phrase it baffles me plus a clause don't we yes

so I could say it baffles me how this pilot could go to Germany and land in

Scotland

well thank you very much for not baffling us on that explanation let's

have a look at the second headline the second headline for today is from the

Scottish Sun the sons of UK paper this is Scottish version and the word is

blunder it says plain blunder passengers baffled

there's that word again as flight destined for Dusseldorf Lanza Edinburgh

Airport due to paperwork blunder blunder careless mistake often serious and they

feel so strongly about it they've used it twice in the headline okay so what

kind of word is blunder blunder is a countable noun means a careless or

stupid perhaps mistake okay and what kind of verb will be used with it make

so we're talking about this pilot we could say he made a pretty significant

blunder yeah when he arrived in the wrong country with all his passengers

and if you make more than one you could make blunders because or you can make a

series of blunders okay so for example if I leave my keys in the house when I

lock the door and I leave and I load my wallet along the way and all sorts of

things happened to me due to my own carelessness I could say I've made a

series of blunders you could say you've made a series of blunders exactly or

gonna use a verb form again you blundered okay and is when I blundered

when I left the house I blundered when I got on the bus and forgot my wallet

that's perfectly human perfectly forgivable and the other form we can use

is the ing form as an adjective okay this is quite strong so don't say it to

your family or your bosses or anything wouldn't normally say it to friends in

an informal way someone who understands that you're joking with them it yes so I

could say Oh Dan you're such a blundering fool why did you do that it

happens all the time very very human

okay well thank you for not blundering through their explanation let's have a

little make any blunders no he didn't actually it was very good yes let's have

a look at the third headline the third and final headline for today is from RTL

today and our word is stifle it's a BBC presenter can't stifle the laughs stifle

restrain or prevent something from happening exactly so the topic of the of

the story is that when the BBC headliner was reporting on this admittedly very

funny story he was trying not to laugh I guess he was on the TV but it says can't

stifle he couldn't do it okay so he began to laugh although he was trying

not to who's trying to prevent his laughter stifle it much like children

who often stifle their laughter when they ain't told off and they don't

understand yeah you could stifle laughter then you could stifle giggles

as well if you're if you're a child and your parents shouting at you guaranteed

to make them more angry okay and can we use this in in in other ways it does

have an you can actually there is a more serious use of stifle which means to

prevent something from having air and it's in this more serious context you're

also likely to see it in headlines so for example if there's a government that

doesn't like criticism you could say the government is trying to stifle criticism

by silencing journalism I say or maybe if you have a very artistic child who

would like to become an artist or a photographer but actually the parents

they're its parents would prefer it to become a doctor or a mathematician

they might stifle its creative its stifle its creativity exactly yes very

nice well thank you for not stifling any information about Rome I bet so cab you

Larry

now Tom could you please recap the vocab of course I can

we have baffled completely confuse blunder a careless mistake often serious

and stifle restrain or prevent something from happening thank you very much now

if you'd like to test yourself on today's vocabulary there is a quiz that

you can take on our website don't get baffled don't get baffled thank you very

much you've baffled me now so where was I quiz you can take at our website BBC

learning english.com don't make any more blunders done thank you very much also

Tom there are also lots of other language videos for you to learn with

and lots of other materials available for you you can also find us on social

media that's Twitter Instagram Facebook and

YouTube you have another one I'm trying to pay for well stifle my laughter as

well Twitter Instagram Facebook and YouTube and of course there is an app

that you can use it's frees download and free to do use so you can take us with

you wherever you go apologies there for the Miss speech tom is making faces at

me but all the language has been exemplified again yes thank you very

much for joining us and good bye bye Ron please review from BBC learning

English

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