BBC 英语学习 News Review Will Smith打Chris Rock

Actor Will Smith hits Chris Rock at the Oscars.

Hello.

This is news review from BBC Learning English, and I'm Rob And joining me to talk about this new story

is Roy. Hello. Roy. Hello, rob.

And hello everybody. If you would like to test yourself on the vocabulary around this story,

all you need to do is head to our website, bbc learning english com, to take a quiz.

But now, let's hear more about this story from this BBC News report.

The oscars have been overshadowed by real life drama.

After the actor, will Smith walked onto the stage and hit the comedian Chris Rock for making a joke about his wife.

Minutes later, will Smith won the award for best actor for his role in King Richard.

He used his acceptance speech to apologize to the Academy.

So Will Smith hit Chris Rock at the Oscar Ceremonies on Sunday night.

This was after Chris Rock made a joke about Jade Pinket.

Smith will's wife. Shortly after this, wilsmith won an award for best actor, and used his speech to say sorry to the organizers the Academy.

And we've got three words and expressions from a news headlines about this story.

What are they? Please Roy, We do we have overshadows.

Press charges and slammed. That's overshadows.

Press charges and slammed. Ok let's have a look at the 1st word from your 1st headline, please.

Okay, so our 1st headline comes from NBC News, and it reads wilsmith's confrontation with Chris Rock overshadows his long held Oscar dreams.

That's overshadows causes something to seem less important.

Okay, so overshadows is spell O-V-E-R-S-H-A-D-O-W-S.

And it is a verb, and it means to make someone or something less important.

OK So I know about shadows.

This happens when something blocks the light from the sun, and you get a shadow, a dark area behind it.

So are we talking about something here blocking the sun?

Well, no, no, we're not exactly.

And it, but it is kind of related.

So when a shadow is cast, and that is the verb become a commonly used to cast a shadow, the thing in the shadow becomes darker less in the light.

And that's a similar idea here.

One action or an event takes another thing out of the light or out of the focus, and therefore it becomes, or makes it become, are less important.

So in the case of the headlines, we're talking about wilsmith's dream to win an oscar, but his, his, his confrontation with Chris Rock are overshadowed.

That right? So it's his dream that was overshadowed.

But can something overshadow someone? Can people be overshadowed?

Yes. So we've talked about dreams, but you can, absolutely you can overshadow somebody.

So let's talk about work. Maybe there's somebody at work who is just really good at what they do, and it makes other people feel overshadowed, or it other overshadows other people's work, or maybe they're louder and they're more outspoken, and therefore they can overshadow other people.

And in that sense, it means to make people or their work are less noticeable.

And it can happen in families too.

Yes, yeah, yeah. Maybe there's one sibling who's always getting the top grades, the top of war, the top marks for everything.

And then the other sibling maybe doesn't quite do as well.

They're still good, but they are overshadowed by the, uh, the student who's performing better academically.

OK? And it does have a literal meaning as well, doesn't it?

It does, yeah, E.G. let's talk about buildings.

If one building is really, really big and there's another building behind it, you can say the big building overshadows the little building.

Got it right. Let's have a summary then of that word.

We were talking about shadows and things being in the shade, where we took the expression to throw shade in one of our videos, the English we speak.

So how can someone watch that, please?

Roy. Well, all you need to do is click the link in the description below.

OK, let's move on Now to your next headline, please.

OK, so our next headline comes from The Independent, and it reads, oscars 2022.

Chris Rock won't Press charges against Wilsmith, police say.

So that's press charges File a police report.

Okay, so a two word expression here.

1st word is press P-R-E-S-S. 2nd word charges C-H-A-R-G-E-S.

And we use it to mean file an official complaint with the police against somebody.

Hmm. Now, of course I know about this word.

Press is when you put pressure on something like a button, you press a button.

Is that what you're doing here?

No, so you're right, you talk about that's when we talk about press.

It often used as a physical action, like, e.g.

you're in a lift, and you press a button to go down or go up.

But here it's not being used literally to press charges.

Means to accuse somebody officially with the police of doing something.

Now you have pressed there individually.

These two words, press and charges, they have a lot of different meanings.

Press can mean, as you say, press a button, apply pressure, or you could force somebody, press somebody for answers to press someone.

I'm pressing you for an answer, for somebody for answers charges.

You could use charge charges in accusations.

You could also use it as a bank charges, which is an amount of money you're being requested for, or you can even use it to charge your phone, which means to give electricity.

But here, as the two words combined, press charges means to make an official complaint.

And notice that it's used commonly with the preposition against press charges against somebody.

Hmm. Total legal term Somebody presses charges, then that person might go to court and a judge will say, you are charged with this offence.

Yeah. So to be charged with something means to be officially accused of doing something.

Now, in other ways that we can use press, you could press a case or press a claim, so, e.g.

maybe at work, a new position or a new role, a new job opening opens up, and I press my case that I am the best candidate for the job.

Sorry, robert, I mean to overshadow you with my work, but I I'm pressing my case that I am the best candidate.

That's okay, roy, that's very impressive.

Oh, see what I did there?

Okay, let's have a summary. We were talking about charges and judges and the legal system briefly just then, but we have a whole series about international law on our website and on youtube.

How can people watch it? All you need to do is click the link in the description below, just down there.

OK, let's move on to your next headline, please.

Roy. OK, so our next headline comes from the Sun, and it reads, will Smith slammed for not apologizing to Chris Rock in oscar's acceptance speech minutes after punching him during fight.

So the word is slammed, criticized strongly?

Yes. So slammed is spell S-L-A-M-M-E-D, and it is being used as a verb, and it means criticized strongly.

Hmm. And it's interesting to see this word in the headline here, because I associate slamming things as in closing a door quite loudly and abruptly.

Maybe in a bit of a temper, you might slam the door.

Well, you shouldn't do that, because it's very, very bad for your doors.

But again, this is a word.

Slam is a word that can be used both literally and figuratively.

So yet you can slam a door.

You shouldn't, but you can slam a door, um.

But it can also be used to mean receive or give very strong criticism.

And it's almost the idea that the force, like the slamming of the door, is impacting the criticism, is impacting on the person very heavily.

Hmm, so you can slam someone for for what they say.

Is it just about people? No, no.

We can slam things as well.

So, e.g., a new album comes out, and it could be slammed.

A new song could be slammed.

A film could be slammed. And also, e.g.

a company and their practices, they could be strongly criticized.

They could be slammed. But come easy's word everywhere.

It sounds a bit like a headline type of word.

I wouldn't slam somebody for doing something in the office.

You're right. No, you it's not a normal word that we reduce in an everyday English environment.

And as you say, it's a very journalistic word in the office.

Maybe, e.g., you do some some work, and I don't think it's very good.

Maybe I could, and I really criticize

it, I could pick it to pieces, pick the piece of work to pieces.

I could pull it apart. I could find fault with it, find problems with it.

Oh, generally, I could just criticize it.

OK, well, I can't pick your definition there to pieces.

Roy, it was very good. Let's have a summary.

OK, roy. Now, could you please summarize the vocabulary that we've talked about today?

Please? Yes, we had overshadows, causes, something to seem less important.

We had press charges, file a police report, and we had slammed criticized strongly.

Now, if you want to test your understanding of these words and expressions, we have a quiz on our website at bbc learning english dot com.

And that's the place to go to for lots of other learning English resources.

And all, of course, check us out on all the social media platforms too.

Well, that's all for news. Of you for today.

Please join us again next time.

Thanks for watching. Bye, bye, bye.

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