Here’s a word that doesn’t tend to appear in headlines. It’s a bit too long for that. However, it’s regularly used to describe anything that’s causing public disagreement and discussion. We’re talking about the word controversial.

It’s a word that’s frequently attached to the highly controversial figure of US President Donald Trump and every controversial action he takes. Unusually, the most common use in the last week or so has not been Mr Trump’s latest controversial statement or latest Tweet containing a controversial claim or a controversial opinion about a controversial topic such as immigration or US international relations. The word controversial has been used most to describe Michael Wolff’s book Fire and Fury which claims to tell the inside story of Mr Trump’s first year as President of the USA.

Let’s pause for a moment and examine the pronunciation of the word. Here’s the phonemics: /ˌkɒn.trəˈvɜː.ʃəl/  . We need to get the word stress in the correct place. It falls on the third syllable. That means you say the word like this: controVERsial. However, notice in the phonemics that in British English we don’t tend to pronounce the letter ‘r’ in that stressed syllable. However, North American speakers such as Mr Trump do include that sound.

There’s another transatlantic pronunciation difference. Controversial is an adjective that derives from the noun controversy. In Britain, we have a choice. We can pronounce it with the stress on the second syllable: conTROversy or on the first syllable: CONtroversy. Over in the US they usually use the second pronunciation.

Now let’s go back to other uses of controversial. We’ll stay in the United States where Mr Trump has a controversial proposal to build a wall on the border with Mexico. Californians recently voted to pass controversial legislation to allow people in that state to buy, sell and use marijuana. Finally, there’s the ongoing investigation into the Trump election campaign’s controversial relations with people in Russia. All of which gives Americans plenty to discuss and disagree about even after they’ve finished reading Michael Wolff’s book.

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All across Europe, people, companies and governments are trying to make deals with each other. The British government wants to get a deal on Brexit so that it can then negotiate trade deals with other countries. Taxi company Uber is hoping to strike a deal with the transport authorities in London over its licence to operate in that city. French public sector trade unions want to cut a deal with President Macron over budget cuts. In Germany, newly re-elected Chancellor Merkel is working hard to close a deal with possible coalition partners.

Of course, everybody wants to get a good deal. Prime Minister May is worried that the UK may not get a fair deal from the European Union. She is even making plans for a no deal Brexit in case any deal with the EU falls through. Many people in Catalonia think they get such a rough deal from the government of Spain that they want the region to declare independence.

Across the Atlantic, however, the author of a book called ‘The Art of the Deal’ is not interested in doing deals. President Trump says he wants the USA to back out of the deal to address climate change made in Paris last year. At the same time, he has made it clear that he doesn’t want to discuss a deal with the leadership of North Korea to avoid military conflict.

Mr Trump, famously, is not an easy man to deal with. Try to remember that next time you’re finding it difficult to make a deal with a customer or colleague.

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Read about deal in the dictionary.

deal (noun)

deal (verb)

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When is a colour not a colour? Well, when the word green appears in a new headline, it’s rarely referring to the hue of something. It that case, green means a set of beliefs or a political movement or a lifestyle.

Green, of course, is shorthand for anything to do with the natural environment and protecting that environment from damage by human activity.

Many countries have a Green Party. The members of those parties are often referred to as Greens. However, they are not the only ones who are concerned with green issues such as reducing pollution or protecting biodiversity. People who fight for these things outside traditional political systems are called green campaigners or green activists.

All of these groups campaign for the wider use of green technology which uses renewable energy sources such as the wind and the sun to generate green electricity. These kinds of projects are often paid for with green investment from green banks.

Other campaigns are for people to adopt green living. There is disagreement about what this means. For some people it’s about sorting their recycling and buying local produce. For others it extends to giving up flying and becoming vegetarian or even vegan.

Many companies are now competing for the green dollar. They do this by marketing consumer products that they claim are better for the environment that other, similar products. However, these companies are also accused of greenwashing: making exaggerated claims that their products are more environmentally-friendly than they really are.

All of this doesn’t answer the big question of whether a consumer culture can be truly green. At the end of the day, given the choice of several “environmentally-friendly”, luxury products, the greenest option is to buy none of them.

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The world economy relies on trade in goods and services between countries. This is nothing new. It’s been happening for most of human history. We don’t find it unusual that our local shops sell products from every part of the globe, or that our High Street bank* has its headquarters on the other side of the world.

The word ‘trade’ is in the headlines a lot at the moment because several major international trading partners are reconsidering their relationships with each other.

The most famous, of course, is Brexit: the UK’s exit from the European Union.

Trade talks are one of the biggest parts of the Brexit negotiations between the UK government and the EU. At the moment, the UK is still part of the European Union. This means UK-based companies benefit from trade agreements the EU has with countries like Japan, Canada and other trade blocs such as Mercosur in South America. However, UK government ministers say they want the freedom to make their own trade deals with these countries. They claim that membership of the EU involves too many trade restrictions. The UK’s trade figures show it has a deficit with many countries: imports are worth more than exports. Supporters of Brexit believe that leaving the EU will allow the UK to convert those trade deficits into trade surpluses.

The president of the USA also talks a lot about free trade. However, he also threatens to use international trade as a weapon. Since his election, there have been regular headlines about trade disputes with Canada and rumours of a trade war between the USA and China, its biggest trading partner.

Of course, history shows us that all these countries and blocs will continue to trade with each other. However, it looks like the World Trade Organisation (WTO) – the organisation responsible for adjudicating on international trade disputes – is going to be very busy for the next few years.

* a bank which (in the UK) provides services to individuals as well as companies and has many local offices

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The phrase ‘fake news’ started to appear in news headlines last year and has now entered the dictionary. Here’s the definition from the Cambridge Advanced Learner’s Dictionary. Fake news is:

“false stories that appear to be news, spread on the internet or using other media, usually created to influence political views or as a joke”

The term fake news is used a lot by some politicians. When they say that a news report is fake news, they mean it contradicts their beliefs and so they don’t want other people to believe it. They have a different view of the situation and want to promote that view. Instead of giving evidence to support their view, the politicians try to discredit  the original new report by calling it fake news. Very often, it isn’t important to these politicians whether the news is true or not.

When a politician claims something is fake news they rarely criticise the content of the news report directly. Their aim is to call the writer and publisher of the report a fake. In other words, they’re calling them a liar. Of course, this is also an attack on anybody who accepts the truth of the original news report. The implication is they are stupid to believe it and, therefore, those who don’t, such as the politician and his supporters, are more intelligent.

Although fake news is a fixed phrase it’s not the only word that we use when we talk about attempts to deceive people. There are words such as false, forged, counterfeit, and fraudulent. For example,

The document had a forged signature at the bottom.

Last week I found a counterfeit pound coin in my wallet.

He was arrested for submitting a fraudulent tax return.

We can also use the words fake and false to describe these situations.

He made a false claim that it was his signature.

The pound coin was a fake.

The tax return contained false information.

While we’re taking about words that mean fake, let’s look at some words that mean the opposite such as true, real, genuine and authentic. For example,

Read the article then decide if each of these statements is true or false.

I prefer documentaries to dramas. I like to hear the stories of real people.

The art expert declared that the painting was a genuine Rembrandt.

There’s a new restaurant in the High Street. They serve authentic Malaysian food.

So, what’s the opposite of fake news? It’s just news, of course.

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By Barney

The next word in our occasional series about newspaper vocabulary is in headlines everywhere. It’s election /ɪˈlek.ʃən/.

Let’s start with the definition. The Macmillan English Dictionary says an election is

an occasion when people vote for someone to represent them, especially in a government.

We’ll come back to the word vote in a moment but first let’s focus on different types of elections.

Last year, the people of the USA voted to choose a new president. That’s what we call a presidential election. The people of France are currently doing the same.

There are other types of elections; one for every level of government. In the UK this month, we have local elections in some parts of the country, including Stratford. This is when we vote to choose the people to represent us at a city or county level.

And we also have a general election in June. A general election is to choose the representatives to go to the national parliament. In the UK, we call these people Members of Parliament or MPs.

Right now, we’re now in the middle of the election campaign. The newspapers, television and radio are full of interviews with candidates from the different political parties and reports about what they promise to do if we vote for them.

This year’s UK general election is a snap election. This means that, instead of waiting for the official 5-year parliamentary period to end in 2020, the UK Prime Minister suddenly decided to call an election at very short notice.

What about the word vote /vəʊt/? We often use it as a verb, for example:

Who did you vote for?

However, newspapers sometimes use it as a noun which means the same as election, for example:

The results of the June vote will influence the Brexit negotiations.

There are lots of other words connected to elections but we’ll deal with them another time.

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by Barney