Milan ice cream ban: BBC News Review

Banning ice cream and pizza in Milan?

This is News Review from BBC

Learning English where we help you understand news headlines in English.

I'm Beth. And I'm Phil.

Make sure you watch to the end

to learn the vocabulary that you need to talk about this story.

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from the headlines. Now,

today's story. For many, ice cream, pizza and Italy

go hand in hand.

Now, the northern city of Milan has plans to ban the sale

of these famous Italian foods late at night.

The city's council is considering the move

after complaints about noise from local residents.

Critics of the plan

say it will damage local businesses.

You've been looking at the headlines,

Phil. What's the vocabulary

that people need to understand this news story in English?

We have: poised, declares war on

and sort of. This is News Review from BBC

Learning English.

Let's have our first headline.

This is from your Euro News. Why is Milan poised to ban ice cream and pizza

after midnight?

So, this headline asks why Milan is trying to ban pizza and ice cream.

We're looking at the word, poised. Phil,

what can you tell us about it?

OK, well, literally poised means in position and ready to act.

Maybe think of an animal –

we might say that a snake is poised to strike.

What that means is that the snake is looking at the mouse,

it's very still and just getting ready to jump on the mouse and eat it.

But here, poised is metaphorical. We're not literally talking about an animal.

But, imagine the council, ready to do something dramatic

and that thing is to ban ice cream and pizza.

Yes. And we often use poised to mean ready to do – something poised to act,

poised to announce. It has this idea of anticipation –

that there's something quite serious coming, quite often.

Yes. And pizza and ice cream in Milan is definitely serious business.

OK, let's look at that again.

Let's have a look at our next headline.

And this is from the Telegraph. Italian city

declares war on ice cream sellers.

So this headline again is about the Italian city,

Milan, versus ice cream or

ice cream sellers.

We're looking at 'declares war on'. This sounds very dramatic.

Yeah, I mean

this isn't literal - literally it's when one country says to another country

'we are at war with you'. But this

isn't that. It's just talking about a confrontation as a conflict

or disagreement between the city council and the ice cream sellers.

Yes. So, 'declare war on' here in the headline is metaphorical.

This reminds me of another phrase which is 'the war on something'. Again,

it's not really to do with the military or armies.

You might hear about the war on unemployment or the war on drugs.

What kind of situations do we hear it in usually?

We often hear this from politicians or journalists reporting

on politicians, and when they announce a war on something

it means it's a problem

they want to take strong action against.

So, we could talk about this policy

perhaps as a war on noise or a war on anti-social behaviour

or something like that. Yeah.

OK, let's look at that again.

Let's have our next headline.

This is from the Metro. Milan wants to ban gelato,

pizza and other Italian favourites (sort of).

OK. So, this headline is saying the same thing again.

It's all about banning that food in Milan.

We are looking at sort of.

I use this expression all the time, Phil. Why do you we use it?

Well, here we are using 'sort of' to describe something that is

like something else.

So, we're saying this is like a ban.

It's not really a ban –

it's only after a certain time.

Yes. And something interesting about the pronunciation.

It's written in the headline 'sort of',

but when we pronounce it in spoken English,

we say 'sorta' or /sɔːtəv/. Are there any other alternatives?

Well, 'kind of' means the same,

and that's often 'kinda' or /kaɪndəv/. Both of these expressions

are very common in English as fillers, which are the words we say

when we're trying to think of the next word, so, often,

we'll sort of put another kind of word in the sort of gap...

Yeah.

Yeah, I think you've kind of explained that quite well.

But I think we should sort of just go and get ice cream now.

What do you think? Actually,

I think it would be better if we kind of looked at that again.

OK, yeah. Let's look at that again.

We've had poised – ready for

action, declares war on – tries to defeat

and sort of – in a way; kind of.

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