Speakout Advanced p 76. Keys and Vocabulary

Names for the 2000s (two thousands) decade, a decade that began on January 1, 2000, and ended on December 31, 2009:

The Zeros
The New Millennium
The Singles
The Aughties, a play on the phrase "the eighties" and the word aught, meaning "zero". Aught also means anything.
The Noughties, derived from "nought" a word used for zero.
The Bush Years.

Ex 1
Culture notes
Credit crunch is a term that has been coined by the media to describe a reduction in the availability of loans from banks, as a result of the worsening economic situation seen in North America and Europe in the first decade of the 21st Century.
crunch: a situation in which there is suddenly not enough of something, especially money. E.g. a budget/ energy/ housing crunch. Higher grain prices are putting a crunch on cattle feeders. The agencies are facing a financial crunch.

Web 2.0 is a term used to describe how the internet has changed in recent years to facilitate greater sharing of personal information and user-operated design.

A carbon footprint describes the total amount of greenhouse gas (especially carbon dioxide) emissions caused by the activities of one person or company. E.g. Flying is the biggest contribution to my carbon footprint. An analysis of the carbon footprints of leading companies. Companies are measuring their carbon footprints. A carbon footprint calculator.

Ex 2
KEY
The key trend: 'youth culture' and the way in which this now includes adults who are in their forties and fifties.

Culture notes
The BBC documentary History of Now: Story of the Noughties is a three-part documentary film which first aired in 2010. It explores the cultural highlights of the first decade of the 21st Century in Britain, where older people began recapturing their youth. It was hosted by a range of leading cultural commentators such as Andrew Marr, Tanya Byron and Will Self.

recapture something to bring back a feeling or repeat an experience that you had in the past. E.g. He was trying to recapture the happiness of his youth.

Vocabulary 

inexorable: /ɪnˈeksərəbl/ that cannot be stopped or changed. E.g. The inexorable rise of "youth culture". The inexorable rise of crime.

turn: A time when one period of time ends and another begins. E.g. the turn of the century. The turn of the millennium.

unwilling (to do something) not wanting to do something and refusing to do it. E.g. They are unwilling to invest any more money in the project. She was unable, or unwilling, to give me any further details.

relinquish /rɪˈlɪŋkwɪʃ/ to stop having something, especially when this happens unwillingly. Give up. E.g. He was forced to relinquish control of the company. They had relinquished all hope that she was alive.

kidult /ˈkɪdʌlt/ an adult who likes doing or buying things that are usually thought more suitable for children.

Ex 3B
KEY
1 T 



2 T 



3 T 



4 T 

Ex 4B
KEY

1 disorientating change 
wave: a large number of people or things suddenly moving or appearing somewhere. E.g. Wave after wave of aircraft passed overhead.



2 major fault lines 
fault line: a divisive issue or difference of opinion that is likely to have serious consequences. E.g. religion is now the great fault line of American politics. Geology: a place where there is a break that is longer than usual in the layers of rock in the earth's crust (fault: Sp. falla)



3 the lifestyle of the young 



4 empowerment of young people
 
empowerment: the action of giving power to somebody. Sp. atribución de poder. E.g. the empowerment of the individual.



5 short trousers, a suit 



6 take more holidays

Transcript
History of Now: The Story of the Noughties 
VO=Voice-over JM=Julia Mango DD=Danny Dorling LE=Larry Elliott WS=Wili Self SH=Sarah Harper
VO: The first decade of the new millennium saw waves of massive and, at times, disorientating change. Bewildering new words and phrases sprang up trying to make sense of it all. It was a decade of surprising connections, when what was really happening was often not as it appeared. The story of the noughties is more than just the history of the last ten years. It tells us where the twenty-first century itself is heading.
In 2010 we already have a sense of the forces shaping Britain in our still new century. Some have been heavily discussed; others haven't. We begin this series with the most significant split to
have emerged in our society in the last ten years.
JM: Age is to the twenty-first century what social class was to the twentieth century. It's one of the major fault lines in our society.
DD: Different generations became less aware of each other. Older people became more frightened of younger people. Younger people became less appreciative of older people.
LE: We had a situation where everybody wanted to be young, but the only people who could afford the lifestyle of the young were the old.
JM: Adults and young people are probably more divided now than they ever were in the past, partly because of the empowerment of young people and the role that youth culture has in dominating society.
WS: People say, 'Well, in the I 950s, you know, there was a transition. You went from having short trousers to wearing a suit and you were at work and you were an adult or you went down the pit and you became an adult.' And there was an absolute cut-off point, there was none of this teen stuff. Now there's still a period of being a child, authentically a child . And then at the age of sexual maturity everybody's unloosed not into adulthood but to 'kidulthood'. You have the idea of this kind of perpetual childhood.
VO: In the noughties, 'kidulthood' was open to almost everyone. No longer did you have to be young to act young. In the early two thousands, the biggest club in Britain was School Disco.
SH: You have men and women in their mid thirties, even into their forties who are living the lifestyle that one would normally have presumed was that of a teenager or twenty-year-old.
DD: We looked recently at the spread of toys around the world, and the really interesting thing was that most of the toys weren't for children, they were actually toys for adults. And so the, the bulk of the world toy market, in terms of cash at least, isn't for toys being consumed by children anymore.
VO: The whole kidult accessory kit included a micro scooter or mountain bike, a pair of trainers, three-quarter-length trousers, t-shirts with carefully chosen pop culture references, an iPod, a game console and kid lit in your man bag.
DD: You've got used to playing, you've got used to going out, you've got used to having recreational time. And if you've got money, then why not have toys, why not take more holidays, why not carry on behaving like you might have behaved when you were eighteen, nineteen or twenty?

Vocabulary
Bewildering  /bɪˈwɪldərɪŋ/ making you feel confused because there are too many things to choose from or because something is difficult to understand. Confusing. E.g.  a bewildering array (collection)/ range. There is a bewildering variety of software available.

spring up: (sprang, sprung) to appear or develop quickly and/ or suddenly. E.g. Play areas for children are springing up all over the place. Opposition groups are springing up like mushrooms.

split division

fault line: a divisive issue or difference of opinion that is likely to have serious consequences. E.g. religion is now the great fault line of American politics.

pit: mine. E.g. He went down the pit (= started work as a miner ) when he left school. 

cut-off a point or limit when you stop something. E.g. The government announced a cut-off in overseas aid. Is there a cut-off point between childhood and adulthood? Set a cut-off date for work to be finished. 

unloose: undo; let free. E.g. he rushed across to unloose the dog.

kidult /ˈkɪdʌlt/ an adult who likes doing or buying things that are usually thought more suitable for children. Kidulthood

the bulk (of something) the main part of something; most of something. E:g. The bulk of the population lives in cities.

kit: a set of tools or equipment that you use for a particular purpose. E.g. a first-aid kit. A drum kit. An accessory kit.

kid lit: Children's literature. E.g. kid lit sells well.