Hi there. Welcome back to engVid with me, Benjamin. How are you today?
wherever you're watching this from. In today's lesson we are looking at phrasal verbs to do with crime.
Why might this be of interest to you? Well, I don't know. If you watch a
TV detective series, which are becoming increasingly popular, then you will start to understand
more if you're watching American or English series. God forbid you might come to the UK
or America and find yourself in a situation in which you are needing to speak to the police.
Maybe some of the words here will help you get out of that situation smoothly. Or you
may just be able to use these phrasal verbs to help your overall conversational fluency.
Today's section is... Today's lesson is organized into three sections. We have before a crime,
an incident; we have during; and we have what happened after.
So, a few years ago I had a German student who came to visit me here in London, and I
showed him around for a week. Lovely guy called Robert. And I took him to the law courts,
so I took him to the most famous courts in London called the Old Bailey, which is where
some quite nasty crimes where the... Where the people accused go to court. I'll just
write that down, people accused. So if you're accused of a crime it means someone says you
have done something bad, you need to be punished. So they go to court. They go to court. Okay?
So, this particular story, I was there with Robert listening in the court to what had happened.
Somebody had been put up. "To put somebody up to". Okay, so let's just...
We have a group of people. This person here, he is the boss of the group and he is
putting pressure on, he wants this person to carry... Carry out a crime. Okay? To carry
out a crime, to do something bad. So he starts putting somebody up to, so he starts going:
"Come on, so-and-so, you can do this. It would be a really good idea. You'll get lots of money."
Okay? So, "to put somebody up to", to put them up. You're putting them up, you're
helping them be able to do it, to put somebody up to, to encourage, to help them to do it.
"Put somebody up to", to make them think they can do it.
Next phrase: "To lead somebody on". So, here we have boss, and we'll call this man Gareth.
Boss says to Gareth: "Come on, Gareth, come with me. We're going to go and do something. It's a great idea."
So, Gareth is following boss. Yes? He is taking the lead from the
boss. He is leading him on. "Lead somebody on" is to give...
Next verbal... Phrasal verb: "Get mixed up in".
Gareth has found that he is with the
wrong people. Yeah? If you think of a box of sweets, they all get mixed up. Gareth,
here, has got mixed up with some bad people. "To get mixed up in" means to hang out with...
To get mixed up in, to hang out with the wrong people. Okay.
"Lean on". Gareth has started saying: "Mm, not sure, boss, if that's what I want to do.
I'm not sure if it's a good idea to go into a shop with a gun and ask for all of their money."
But boss starts leaning on Gareth. Yeah? He starts leaning on Gareth and says:
"Come on, Gareth, you know it's a good thing to do." Okay? So he leans on.
"To lean on" means to put pressure. And to lean on someone, you
could use that in a business context as well, meaning to put a bit of pressure on someone
Gareth says yes. He agrees to go into this gambling shop with a gun and ask for all of their money.
So, he comes into the shop with a balaclava, with a hat with just eyes, and
he says: "This is a hold up. I'm going... This is a hold up." Okay? A "hold up" means,
you know, hold your hands up. Okay? It's a hold up. Everyone's going to put their hands
up, and Gareth is going to come and take the money. Okay? To... To do a hold up, to give
a hold up, to make a hold up, to create a hold up. A hold up. A hold up.
Now, if Gareth went home and said to boss: "I got a little bit scared. I didn't do it",
then boss might beat Gareth up. "To beat up" means to attack, to hurt.
Okay? To cause physical pain. Okay. Gareth comes back from the boss, says:
"Okay, okay, I'll go back into this shop and continue with what I was doing."
He finds that the doors have been locked,
so now he needs to break in. "Break" means to damage something. He has to break the doors
"Blow up", to blow something up. Gareth comes in, realizes that there is a big wall between
him and the money, so he must blow the wall up. So he gets some dynamite stick, throws
it, and then-pooh-the wall is blown up and he can help himself to the money. Okay?
"To blow up" means... So, again, we find a preposition "up" here totally changing the meaning of
that word. "Blow" on its own, it's very nice, but with "up", quite violent. Now, Gareth
"runs off with". To run, yeah. "Off" means away, to run away with. To run away with the
money. He runs away. To run away.
Nee-naw, nee-naw, nee-naw, nee-naw. Sound of the police. A "tip off".
To tip someone off. Now, there was someone in the shop at that time who saw this person. They said to
the police: "I think it was Gareth." Okay? So, a "tip off" is in... A tip off is to give information.
Okay. Now, the police have this idea: "Hmm, we think Gareth may have come
into the shop with a gun. Not very good. And exploded something, and stolen a load of money.
They then take this to the court, to the Old Bailey possibly, and then the judge and the
jury will have to... Just write that down. Jury are the group of citizens, group of people
who are deciding whether someone is guilty or not. The judge is the man with the funny
hat, or the woman with the funny hat who says whether... What punishment they will get if
they are guilty. So they will decide whether to let someone off. Okay? So, this word "let",
there is an idea of permission to say that someone is able to do something.
"You have permission to go, Gareth." Or:
"We are going to lock the door, lock up, make sure it's really tight, the lock of the prison door,
because Gareth, you are going under. You are going down. You're going down."
Okay? I'll write that down. Going down. Often in a court
an accused person if they're found guilty would have to go down if they're going back
down to prison. So if someone's going down, it means they're going to prison. This is
British English. American English you may find some differences. But having watched
this case with my friend Robert, we found that they got away with the crime.
"To get away with" means: "Dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah. No punishment for me, thank you.
Quick revision of this lesson: "to put somebody up to", "to lead somebody on", "to get mixed"...
Okay? So these two and "to lean on", put pressure on someone to do something.
"To get mixed up in": "Uh, uh, oh. I'm with the wrong people". "Hold up! This is a hold up." Okay? You're
thinking guns, you're thinking money, being stolen. "Beaten up", "to break in",
to smash your way into somewhere. "To blow up", "to run away with". "Tip off":
"So-and-so did it, it was him." If you're "let off", no punishment.
"To lock someone up", bang, into the prison they go. Or are they going to "get away" with it?
No, they're "going down".
Thanks for watching. Give the quiz a go, and I'll see you in the next lesson.