More Australian English

It hasn't been such a great Tour for the Aussies, but Australia's Special Broadcasting Service site has some excellent coverage of the different stages and the Tour in general, including video and audio. There are also some hilarious short promotional videos by one of my favourite [AmEng favorite] riders, sprinter Robbie McEwen, who unfortunately is out of the race at this stage.

The Tour!

Hooray! The Tour de France starts tomorrow! I know a lot of people think bicycle racing is a silly sport, but I absolutely love it. For a bit of cycling vocabulary and some "Franglish", why not check out the BBC's Tour Phrasebook?

This year the Tour is setting off from London for the first time in its history. The BBC is full of other information on the race, including a good Tour tutorial.

Lance Armstrong, love him or hate him, he still wrote a very compelling autobiography called It's Not About the Bike. I found it fascinating.

Sports Illustrated takes a look at some of this year's main contenders.

Who's on First?

The comedy duo Abbott and Costello were very famous in the States in the 1940s-1960s. One of their most popular routines was one called "Who's on First?". It is based on a series of misunderstandings between Abbott and Costello due to the players on a baseball team having some very strange names: Who,

Why not have a listen to the original "Who's on First?" and then compare with an updated version with a conversation between George W. Bush and Condaleeza Rice about world leaders. (You can read along, following the transcript to the original or the Bush-Rice version.)

Haven't had enough football yet?

There is still lots to read about the World Cup tournament, and especially the final. You'll remember that we talked about headbutting just the other week, and look, Zidane gave you an excellent illustration of what the word means.

It's interesting how rumours (AmEng rumors) spread. A couple Italian papers are quoting the Guardian, an English paper, as saying that it was Materazzi calling Zidane a terrorist that provoked the headbutt that got him sent off. The Guardian itself says nothing of the kind, however. The most they said was that 'He had surely been provoked - there were suggestions last night that Materazzi had called him "a terrorist".' This hardly seems definitive evidence, I think.

What's your opinion of the events?

Rugby players and their handbags

Australia and New Zealand take their rugby seriously. And the All Blacks (the New Zealand team) are not at all happy about an Australian television advert (AmEng ad) depicting the Kiwi (New Zealand) players carrying women's handbags. This news story offers you a sample of a New Zealand accent from an All Blacks fan who's pretty confident they'll beat the Aussies.

The following story features the hot-dog eating contest we talked about in the previous post.

Game of the century

Read about the Game of the Century, the 1970 World Cup semi-final between Italy and West Germany.

Does anybody remember this match? If not, what was the most exciting football match you've ever seen?

Good luck, Spain!!

Listening practice

Get a little listening practice with the BBC World Service commentary box. You can listen to authentic football commentary and do some vocabulary work. The site also offers other football-related material.

If you're not into football, there are lots of other video and listening activities. How do you usually get English listening practice?

Heads, elbows and knees

Some body parts can also be used as verbs. For example, in the Italy-U.S.A. match, De Rossi got a red card for elbowing McBride in the face. In the morning, when the underground (AmEng subway) is really crowded, sometimes you have to elbow people out of the way to get on or off the train.

If you mix with people of a higher social class than you, however, you wouldn't want to elbow them, but you could rub elbows with them.

Elbowing people out of the way is a bit aggressive, but kneeing a man in his "privates" is even more so. This might not get you on the train, but it could save your life if attacked on a dark street at night.

When you go down on your knees, say to pray or to propose to somebody (ask them to marry you), this is called kneeling.

A very important skill for a footballer is being able to head the ball in the direction you want it to go. A painful skill perfected by football hooligans is headbutting (hitting someone with your head) each other. However, headbutting can also be used as a self-defence (AmEng defense) technique.

Another way to say that you are going somewhere or in a certain direction, is to say that you are heading there, or in that way. For example, "I'm heading into town if you want a lift." (To give someone a lift or a ride is to take them somewhere in your car.)

Football phrasal verbs

OK, so the BLC Blogger is a bit football obsessed right now. What do you expect, it's the World Cup!

Below you'll find some common phrasal verbs (or nouns derived from them, notice the use of the hyphen for the nouns) that you can use in a football context. (When talking about football, we'll use the British terminology, given that "soccer", as it's called in the States, is much less popular there. We'll be giving the American English in parentheses, though.)

- Both halves of the match (AmEng game) start with a kick-off. [to kick (something) off - to start something]

- The visiting team's striker was brought down in the penalty area. [to bring someone down - to tackle them so that they fall onto the ground]

- It was a terrible foul, and the defender was immediately sent off. [to send someone off - to expel them from the game]

- Spain is sure to go through to the next round. [to go through - to advance]

- The match was called off on account of rain. [to call something off - to cancel a scheduled event]

- Jeremy is going to try out for a place on the local team. [to try out (for something) - to try to win a place on a team or in a group]

- A goal cannot be scored directly from a throw-in. [to throw the ball in - the put the ball back into play with your hands when it crosses the touchline]

- When the football match was over, we went to the pub. [to be over - to be finished, completed]

- They were down 3-nil (AmEng 3-zero) in the 80th minute, and knew they would never catch up. But they didn't give up and kept playing their hardest. After all, as they say: "It ain't over 'til the fat lady sings!" [to catch up (to someone) - to reach the same level when you are behind] [to give up (doing something) - to stop trying to do something because it's too difficult]

-With the round of 16, the World Cup becomes a knock-out competition. [to knock someone out - to eliminate them from competition by defeating them]

We hope you've enjoyed this sampling of phrasal verbs. Remember, the old BLC student newsletter has an index of the phrasal verbs presented in issues of newsletters.

World Cup

As you may just have realised, it's World Cup time. Why not practice a bit (English, not football) by checking the official FIFA World Cup website in English?

You could also read all the news on the BBC SPORT World Cup 2006 site. Americans are not so much into football, or soccer, as they call it, but Sports Illustrated also has lots of coverage. If you want a perspective from a country not playing this time around, you could look to Radio Telefís Éireann (Irish Radio and Television).

Who do you think is going to win? What do you reckon (think) Spain's chances are of getting past the quarter finals this time? Post your comments below.