BBC News Review 章鱼和鱼一起工作

From BBC, learning English. This is Learning English from the News, our podcast about the news headlines.

In this program, the strange way that octopuses and fish work together.

Hello, I'm Nil, and I'm Pifa.

In this program, we look at one new

story and the vocabulary in the headlines that will help you understand it.

You can find all the vocabulary and headlines from this episodes, as well as a worksheet, on our website, bbc learning english dot com.

So let hear more about this story.

Scientists have discovered fish and octopuses that work together to hunt for food.

During dives in the Red Sea, a team of scientists filmed octopuses and fish for 120 h They say.

The videos show octopuses, which are usually thought of as solitary creatures, working together with other fish to catch more food, like small fish and shellfish.

Let's have our 1st headline. This one's from Nature, an academic science magazine.

Octopuss and fish caught on camera hunting as a team.

And that headline, again from Nature.

That's an academic science magazine, octopuses and fish caught on camera hunting as a team.

We're looking at the phrase caught on camera, and this is talking about the videos that the scientists took as part of their research.

So we have court, which is the past of the verbs of catch, and it has lots of meanings, so we can catch a ball, we can catch a criminal, and we can catch someone doing something that means we discover or see them doing something we didn't know about.

Maybe something wrong or unexpected. E.g., my wife caught me having an extra biscuit, even though I'm supposed to be eating healthily.

Oh, dear. So if something is caught on camera, it means the video shows something unexpected.

Think of it like video evidence, neil.

You might deny that you've been eating extra biscuits, but if it was caught on camera, we would know that you were lying.

Now, caught on camera is a common expression, and we usually use it if someone, or something like the octopus, doesn't know they're being filmed.

A similar phrase is to catch someone in the act.

This means to catch someone in the middle of doing something bad or surprising.

So when your wife found out you were eating the biscuits, did she catch you in the act?

Near Yes, I had my hand in the biscuit jar, and so she caught me in the act.

I was actually stealing the biscuits.

At that moment, we ve had caught on camera, discovered doing something through a photo or video recording, e.g., my cat was caught on camera scratching the sofa.

He's so naughty. This is learning English from the news.

Are podcast about the news headlines today we're talking about octopuses and fish working together.

Now, the videos taken by the scientists showed the octopuses and fish working together, but they don't always get on well with each other.

No, they don't. One video shows an octopus punching a fish.

That means hitting it. Now, scientists believe that fish was not working as part of the team, and we have a headline about the punching octopus.

This one is from Cosmos, a science magazine based in Australia.

Octopus packs a punch to direct hunting groups.

That headline again, octopus packs a punch to direct hunting groups.

That's from Cosmos, a science magazine based in Australia.

And we're looking at the expression Packs a punch?

Yes. If something packs a punch, it means it has a lot of power or effect.

Yes. And pack a punch is a metaphorical phrase, and we use it in lots of different situations.

So, e.g. we can use it to talk about flavor.

I could say that my chicken curry packs a punch.

It means it's quite spicy, yes?

Or we can use packs a punch to talk about music, books or art.

E.G. I read a book last week, and the ending really packed a punch.

I was thinking about it for ages afterwards.

In the headline, though, packs a punch is metaphorical and literal.

The octopus packs a punch metaphorically because it's very effective at hunting with the fish, but it also packs a punch literally, as it will sometimes punch the fish that aren't working as part of the team we had, packs a punch, has a lot of power or effect, e.g.

my presentation at work really needs to pack a punch to convince more people about my idea.

This is learning English from the news,

from BBC, learning English. We're talking

about octopuses that punch and fish that hunt.

As we've heard, scientists have found that octopuses and fish work together to hunt better.

Scientists found that even though the octopus had been film punching individual

fish, there's not one leader in the team, and the different species work together to make decisions.

They want to study the underwater behavior more, to find out whether octopuses can remember certain fish who've been bad teammates in the past.

Let's have another headline. Fish join forces with octopuses to hunt, but get a sucker punch if they slack off.

That's from the Times in the UK.

And that headline again, fish join forces with octopuses to hunt, but get a slacker punch if they slack off.

That's on The Times, a newspaper in the UK.

So this headline is talking about the teamwork between the fish and octopuss.

They join forces. And the sucker punch.

In one of the videos, this is just an unexpected punch.

But we are interested in the expression slack off.

What does that mean? Pepper? Well, if someone slacks off, it means they stop working hard.

Maybe they're lazy, or they don't work as part of a team, but they're not working as hard as they should be, or as hard as they used to.

Yes, slack off is an informal phrase to say that someone isn't working hard, e.g., if someone slacks off work, they might go for a long lunch or waste time in the office talking to everyone.

Yeah? And we can also call someone a slacker.

And this is slang for someone that's lazy or doesn't work hard enough.

So in the story, the headline writer is saying that some of the fish slack off they don't work hard enough as part of the team, which is why the scientists think the octopus is decide to punch them.

We've had slack off, stop working hard.

E.G. I used to go for a run every week, that I've been slacking off lately.

That's it for this episode of Learning English from The News.

Will be back next week for another news story.

If you ve enjoyed this program, why not try our Learning English work forecast to improve your English at work?

Search many English for work in your podcast app, or visit our website for all episodes.

And you can find us on social media.

Search for BBC learning English. Bye for now.

Bye.

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