Learn English Vocabulary Daily #17.4 — British English Podcast

Hello, and welcome to The English Like a Native Podcast.

My name is Anna and you're listening to Week 17, Day 4 of Your English

Five a Day, a series that aims to increase your active vocabulary by

deep-diving into five pieces every day of the week, from Monday to Friday.

We start today's list with the noun cliffhanger, cliffhanger.

Cliffhanger is spelled C L I F F H A N G E R.

Cliffhanger.

A cliffhanger is a story or a situation that is exciting because its ending or

result is uncertain until it happens.

Like someone literally hanging off the side of a cliff and you do not know if

they are going to be rescued, if they're going to be able to climb up to safety,

or if they will fall to their doom.

Often, a series will employ a cliffhanger at the end so that you

have to watch the next episode.

If the cliffhanger is particularly powerful, then, for me, it will make

me want to start to watch at least a few minutes of the next episode, so I

can see how a situation is resolved.

And then I get sucked in and end up watching the entire episode

and staying awake far too late.

Let's have another example sentence,

"Both politicians are so close in votes, it looks as if the election

is going to be a cliffhanger.

Can we wait until all the votes have been counted?

I can't wait to find out!"

I don't think people really get that excited about

elections, but you never know.

Alright, next on our list is a word I just mentioned.

The noun, election, election.

We spell this E L E C T I O N, election, election.

An election is a time when people vote in order to choose someone

for a political or official job.

Here's an example,

"Marco is definitely the leading candidate in the election so far,

it's going to be hard to beat him."

Next on our list is a phrasal verb and it is stand down, stand down.

We spell this stand, S T A N D.

Down, D O W N.

Stand down.

Because we have D at the end of stand and D at the beginning of down, those two Ds

sitting next to each other become one.

Stand down.

Stand down.

To stand down is to leave your official job or position.

So, for example, if I were to leave the brand, the company that is English Like

a Native, then I would be standing down.

Especially if I were to hand over the reins, which is another phrase,

meaning to give the power and the responsibility to somebody else.

So, if I were to hand over the reins to someone else,

then I would be standing down.

Here's another example,

"After ten years in office, the minister decided to stand

down for personal reasons."

I don't know why I do a silly voice for these sometimes.

Anyway, let's move on.

The next word is an adjective.

And sometimes this is shortened to PC.

But the phrase is political correctness, political correctness.

This is often, like I said, shortened to PC.

Political correctness.

We spell this, political, P O L I T I C A L, political.

Correctness, C O R R E C T N E S S, correctness.

Political correctness.

Now, what you'll notice is that T that comes in the middle of correcTness is

not really pronounced when you say the whole word correctness, correctness.

If you look in the dictionary, you'll also see the T is written

in the phonetic transcription, but then when you listen to the samples,

they don't pronounce it either.

It's quite difficult to pronounce a T straight after a K.

Correctness.

Correctness.

Correctness.

It's too much.

So, don't worry about that T.

Correctness.

Correctness.

There we go.

Political correctness.

What does this actually mean?

So, political correctness, or being PC, is the principle of avoiding language or

behaviour that may be offensive to others.

So, you're trying to avoid offending people or a group of people, you know,

these are around sensitive subjects, usually like gender or race or disability.

So, you might say a word that suddenly in popular culture has

become deemed as a very negative word or having negative connotations

towards a certain group of people.

And so if you say the wrong word, maybe you do not realise that it

is now deemed offensive, then that would not be politically correct.

Okay.

Actors and celebrities all have to be aware of political correctness.

They have to follow it, be very careful.

Here's an example sentence,

"For reasons of political correctness, we have been asked

to withdraw our advertisement."

OK, moving on to the last word for today.

This is a verb and it is nominate, nominate.

We spell this N O M I N A T E.

Nominate.

To nominate is to officially suggest someone for a position, or a job,

or an election, or an honour.

So, if I were the Queen,

"Oh, hello, assistant, could you possibly draw up a list of nominees, people who you

would nominate for the awards this year?"

"Yes, ma'am, of course.

I nominate these people."

"Oh, thank you so much."

And that was a terrible impression of the Queen.

I do apologise.

I hope that I didn't overstep the mark.

Was I considering political correctness at that point?

Possibly not.

Here's an example sentence for nominate,

"Would you like to nominate anyone for director?

I was thinking Sara as she's really shown her worth over these past few months."

Okay, that's our five for today.

So let's recap what we covered.

We started with the noun cliffhanger, cliffhanger, which is the story

or situation, usually at the end, that's so exciting, you really

need to know what happens next, but the result is left hanging.

It's uncertain.

We never know until next time what's going to happen.

Then we had another noun, election, election, which is the time in which

people vote to choose someone for a certain official position or job.

Then we have the phrasal verb stand down, where someone leaves

their official job or position.

We had the adjective political correctness, the principle of

avoiding language or behaviour that may offend someone.

Then we have the verb nominate, nominate, which is to officially suggest

someone for a job, position or honour.

Let's now do this for pronunciation purposes.

If you can, please repeat after me.

Cliffhanger.

Cliffhanger.

Election.

Election.

Stand down.

Stand down.

Political correctness.

Political correctness.

Nominate.

Nominate.

Fantastic.

Now, I want to officially suggest someone for a job.

What verb could I use for the action that I'm taking here?

Nominate.

Of course.

I want to nominate someone for a job.

Now, I'm watching Game of Thrones and it ends with one of the main

characters being faced with mortal danger and I don't know what's going

to happen and the episode has ended.

That was a real...

cliffhanger.

Cliffhanger.

And tomorrow I'm going to vote because it's the time to vote in a new

councillor for my borough where I live.

We need a new councillor to represent our borough.

What do we call this time of voting?

An election.

Election.

Very good.

What phrasal verb am I going to use to describe what the previous councillor did?

Because they left their official position.

What phrasal verb can I use to describe this?

Stand down.

They stood down from their position.

They walked away from their responsibility.

And if I want to describe the principle of avoiding offensive language or

behaviour, what adjective could I use?

Political correctness.

Political correctness.

Very good.

OK, let's bring everything together in a little story.

This election really is a cliffhanger.

On the one side, we have Martin, a 25-year-old graduate hoping to

make it big in the political world.

On the other, we have Natasha, a 45-year-old mum of three who has

spent her whole life in politics and now has to fight to keep her job

as Minister of State for Housing.

She has no intention of resigning and leaving her seat to a 'young wannabe'.

There is no way she's going to stand down after all these years,

she still has so much to give.

With just two weeks to go until the election, both candidates are fighting for

the hearts and votes of the local people.

With his fresh perspective and commitment to inclusion, Martin is ready to take

on the challenges of the neighbourhood.

He recognises the importance of effective communication and, in his short time

in politics since graduating, has worked tirelessly to bridge the gap

between different cultures, even if his frequent political correctness

has not always gone down well.

Natasha, on the other hand, wants things to stay the way they are.

She doesn't believe that much change is needed, people simply need to understand

how the current regulations work and how they can use them to their advantage.

As a long-time member of the community and a well-respected politician, Natasha

had a good chance of being re-elected at the beginning of the race, but now

it seems people want real change and her nomination is anything but guaranteed.

Who will the local people nominate?

May the best man or woman win!

And that wraps up today's episode.

I do hope you enjoyed it.

Until next time, take very good care and goodbye.