english practice from sepp blatter’s resignation

the resignation of sepp blatter as president of fifa has been reported using several expressions that often come up (are discussed) in my classes.

aptn_blatter_kb_150602_16x9_992
sepp blatter is swiss

this headline comes from

FIFA President Sepp Blatter Resigns From His Post Amid Growing Corruption Probe

resign means blatter quit, he wasn’t fired.  amid means among or in the middle of. probe is a synonym for investigation. abc also reported that now

blatter is being investigated by the fbi and u.s. prosecutors as part of the probe that led to last week’s stunning indictments.

and that

there’s probably a race to see who will flip on [blatter] first

prosecutors are the government’s lawyers. in the american legal system, indictments are formal accusations. stunning means extremely surprising. and flip on is an informal phrase that indicates that people who protected blatter earlier in the investigation will now cooperate with police.

images-22
another type of flip

in this video from last night’s episode of the hbo show last week tonight host john oliver analyzes the ridiculous level of corruption in fifa (the episode was recorded before blatter’s resignation today).  summarized oliver’s observations

[he] went over some of the incredible bribery stories leaking from the organization, which organizes the world cup, and pointed out some of sepp blatter’s terrible decisions.

go over is like discuss. bribery means paying money to influence a decision.  leaking indicates that people don’t want to attach their name to the information that they are supplying and that it is coming to the media through unofficial channels, like wikileaks. point out means direct attention to.

leak
another type of leak (lowflow.ie)

at 7:20 oliver starts to talk about what he qualifies as the worst of blatter’s decisions: the awarding of the 2022 world cup to qatar. inquisitr paraphrases

1,200 people working to build qatar’s stadiums have died, and thousands more will perish leading up to the games in 2022.

leading up to (different from lead to) refers to the period of time from now until the 2022 world cup.

2013119135353687229_8
the massive construction in qatar leading up to the 2022 world cup has already led to the death of over 1,000 workers (surin furcoi/al jazeera)

in a headline from their website,  applies the phrasal verb most frequently used to mark an important leader deciding to leave a position, step down

Sepp Blatter stepping down, says FIFA needs ‘profound overhaul’

overhaul means make major changes.

overhaulin' was a reality show about fixing up cars
overhaulin’ was a reality show about fixing cars  (imdb.com)

so blatter will step down, but not until fifa elects a new president, and because he was re-elected for the fifth time just last friday, a new election

cannot be held for at least four months, according to fifa rules, said domenico scala, chairman of fifa’s audit and compliance committee

the post we used a robot here on richyrocks.com also contains examples of hold (in reference to a press conference rather than an election) and compliance (actually compliant, the equivalent adjective).

are u happy that blatter has stepped down?  how many years will it take to overhaul fifa? will qatar still be the host of the 2022 world cup?  share your opinions under leave a reply


 

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *