1. Look at the headlines:

Funnyman Millward hoping that the joke is not on Saints

McCarthy braced for Shredder

First Leisure switches off the music

Railway report: it’s the wrong type of train

Real IRA is not illegal

Car test kills wife

Is Naomi bad news for the press?

Spain to control mosque funding

Worcester in suspense

Spectator hurt by Davies shot

Hamster hitch

Mother gives daughter her kidney

Stay away from Games, Greek radicals warn

You just couldn’t make it up

Identify the language features used in the headlines Answer the following questions:

1. What kinds of words are omitted?

2. How do the headlines refer to the past, present, future time? What grammatical devices are used?

3. How are passive forms expressed?

4. What kinds of punctuation are used in the headlines?

5. What other language features can you point out?

Look for parallel headline features in Russian newspapers.

2. Very often articles contain synonyms in the text which correspond to the headline tabloidese words. Here are a number of headlines containing tabloidese words. Look for their synonyms in the accompanying extracts from articles.

Now read the headlines again, replacing the tabloidese words with the synonyms. Do the headlines now make sense and are they easier to understand?

1. Newspaper apologises for bogus pictures

ONE of America’s best-known daily newspapers was forced to make a humiliating apology yesterday for publishing fake photographs of United States soldiers purportedly raping Iraqi women.

2. Cameras will oust speed bumps in blitz on the suburbs

THOUSANDS of speed cameras are to be set up in residential areas in a move condemned yesterday as a ‘tax on suburbia’.

Some will replace speed bumps and be used to enforce 20mph limits in areas where speeding is said to be a problem.

3. US drops call for Sadr’s arrest in peace deal

Iraqi police were back on the streets of Najaf yesterday after the US authorities dropped their demand for the arrest of the firebrand cleric Moqtada al-Sadr and withdrew their troops from the holy city.

4. Voters blame Railtrack for train woes

ALMOST twice as many people blame Railtrack for the recent disruption to rail services as blame the Government, according to the latest MORI poll for The Times.

The poll, taken between December 7 and 12, shows why Labour has not, so far, suffered in the polls from the cancellations and delays to trains over the past two months.

5. Vodafone to boost network

Vodafone, the mobile phone group, is to strengthen its network in some remote parts of Scotland and the South of England by using 10,000 pylons owned by Scottish and Southern Energy. This will help Vodafone to roll out its third-generation network, which it needs to offer high-speed Internet services.

6. Bates to be ousted from Wembley project

KEN BATES is today expected to be removed as chairman of Wembley National Stadium Ltd (WNSL) and replaced by Sir Rodney Walker, the chairman of UK Sport, the government quango.

7. Baltimore drops energy plan to return ₤24m cash

BALTIMORE Technologies, the embattled former FTSE 100 company, has abandoned its clean energy strategy and will instead return up to ₤24 million in cash to share-holders.

8. Tube strike to hit mayor’s election

A leading rail union is planning to disrupt London’s mayoral election with a tube strike on polling day likely to cause traffic chaos that could deal a blow to the re-election prospects of Ken Livingstone.

3. Frequently abbreviations and acronyms used in the headlines are written in their full form in the first paragraph of the news story. Match the headlines and the given paragraphs of news stories together. Make a list of the full meanings of the abbreviations.

1. M&S poaches new chief for womenswear

2. FSA fines bank ₤85,000

3. Colonel’s victory over MoD

4. ‘Poor discipline’ may lead to QLR being disbanded

5. Statins may cut MS symptoms

6. Cox pilots AWG back to utilities

7. BA passenger figures rise

8. Chalabi duped us on WMD, says New York Times

9. MCC fight to keep ICC

1. The Financial Services Authority has fined private bank Leopold Joseph ₤85,000 for “serious failings” in its monitoring systems, the watchdog said yesterday.

2. Senior army officers believe disciplinary problems with the Queen’s Lancashire Regiment, the unit at the heart of allegations of abuse of Iraqi prisoners, are so bad that the only cure is to disband it.

3. The Ministry of Defense unlawfully discriminated against a colonel in the Army Legal Service by banning her from taking up a part-time judicial appointment because of her rank, an employment tribunal said in a ruling released yesterday.

4. Marks & Spencer yesterday sacked its director of womenswear, Steve Longdon, after a year of disappointing clothing sales.

5. The Marylebone Cricket Club are making great efforts to keep the International Cricket Council at Lord’s after suggestions that the game’s international governing body could relocate abroad when they convene for their annual meeting in late June.

6. British Airways, Europe’s biggest airline, reported an 11 per cent rise in passenger traffic in May, as more customers traveled long haul than during May 2003. Passenger numbers rose 3.9 per cent to 3.0 million compared with the same period the year before. BA said its passenger load factor, which measures the number of seats filled as a percentage of available capacity, was 71.6 per cent in May, up 1.9 percentage points.

7. Jonson Cox, the new chief executive at the Anglian Water group, has taken the knife to the business in a move to reverse the “very strange strategic decisions” of his predecessor and restore profits.

8. The New York Times, one of America’s most influential newspapers, published a sweeping apology yesterday for being too credulous in its coverage of Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction, blaming its reliance on leading exiles including Ahmad Chalabi.

9. Cholesterol-lowering drugs could ease some of the symptoms of multiple sclerosis, a study suggests.

Preliminary tests of statins, one of the most commonly prescribed drugs in Britain, show they can reduce inflammation in the brain, researchers at the Medical University of South Carolina report today in The Lancet.

Part II. What is the weather like today?

Text 1

Today’s weather

CLOUDY IN WESTERN BRITAIN WITH PATCHY DRIZZLE. SOME WARM SUNNY SPELLS WILL DEVELOP IN THE EAST.

General Situation: Most of Scotland will be dry with sunny spells. Western Scotland and Northern Ireland will have cloud with evening drizzle. England and Wales will start mainly dry but will stay fairly cloudy. Bright or sunny spells will develop in eastern areas.

Greater London, South East England, East Anglia, Central Southern England, East Midlands, East England, West Midlands, Channel Islands, South West England: Cloudy but largely dry for most areas. The East will have early drizzle, but will turn drier with warm sunny spells and only isolated showers. A light northwesterly breeze. Max 21C (70F).

South Wales, North Wales: Patchy drizzle and hill fog in the west, but brighter elsewhere with some warm sunshine. Light westerly winds. Max 19C (66F).

North East England, North West England, Lake District, Central Northern England, Isle of Man: Plenty of cloud in the West with some early drizzle. The East will have brighter spells developing. Light westerly to northwesterly winds. Max 19C (66F).

Borders, Aberdeen Area, Central Highlands, Moray Firth Area, Edinburgh and Dundee Area: Largely dry with sunny spells and variable cloud. Moderate westerly winds, fresh at times. Max 19C (66F).

Northern Ireland, South West Scotland, Glasgow Area, Argyll: A dry start, but cloud will thicken with patchy rain in the afternoon. Feeling humid. Fresh westerly winds. Max 19C (66F).

Orkney, Shetland, North East Scotland, North West Scotland: Cloudy with patchy rain clearing to leave brighter spells. Fresh westerly winds. Max 14C (57F).

Republic of Ireland: A fairly cloudy day with patchy rain or drizzle in places. Moderate westerly winds. Max 20C (68F).

Outlook: Sunny spells and variable cloud. Scotland will be breezy with patchy rain.

(from The Times)

Notes

21С – 21 degrees Celsius (Centigrade)

70F – 70 degrees Fahrenheit

Max 19C – the maximum temperature is 19 degrees Celsius

Celsius or Fahrenheit?

To convert to Fahrenheit: multiply Celsius by 1.8 and add 32

C F 40 104 35 95 30 86 25 77 20 68

C F 15 59 10 50 5 41 0 32 -5 23

C F -10 14 -15 5 -20 -4 -25 -13 -30 -22