Mar 26, 2018
A Phrasal Verb a Day #57 - to be hailed as
TRANSCRIPT
Hello everybody, welcome to another phrasal verb episode.
I’m going to keep this one fairly serious. I’m going to try to keep
it serious.
Let’s see if I manage that. Right. This phrasal verb is “to hail as”. “Hail as”.
Hail is spelt H – A – I – L and “as” is spelt A – S . Okay. “Hail as”.
Now, you might know that “hail” is a kind of weather, isn’t it?
It’s like when little … little bits of ice fall from the sky like a rain-shower of ice.
It’s exciting when that happens, isn’t it?
When it hails or when hail rains down from the sky.
This phrasal verb though has nothing to do with weather at all.
“to hail something as something”. In fact it’s often passive. Alright.
“to be hailed as”. And this means to say publically how good or important someone or something is. You know, he was … he’s been hailed as the greatest sportsman of the twenty first century. That means that someone has publicly stated that this person is a great sportsman.
So, “to hail” or “to be hailed as something” means that someone has been described publicly as very important. Okay? So, they’ve been given a title of importance.
I’ll give you some examples that might help. Alright.
Okay, it’s often used in news reporting it seems. It’s not a sort of thing that you say every day. It’s a sort of thing that you might hear in the news. You know, like … Let’s see.
“The court’s ruling was immediately hailed as a victory for
protesters.”
“The court’s ruling was immediately hailed as a victory for
protesters.”
Okay.
He’s been hailed as the greatest tennis player of this generation. But can Roger Federer hold on to his Grand Slam title? This year’s blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah or blah, blah, blah.
Now, obviously in real news reports they don’t just start going blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
But you get the idea. He’s been hailed as the greatest tennis player of the last five minutes. But can Roger Thompson of Smith Street in Liverpool hold on to that title or will he just fail and just go back to the pub. Only time will tell.
Obviously that’s just a made up example. I intended to do this phrasal verb episode in a serious manner… and I kind of partly achieved that aim, only partly.
So, there you go. “To be hailed as something” means to be described as something, usually in some public way like in a public statement, in a newspaper. There you go. In news reports they often use this phrase.
He’s been hailed as the greatest podcaster on the Internet. But can Luke from Luke’s English Podcast maintain this reputation in the face of , well, no criticism. Yeah. There you go.
That’s it for this one. Speak to you again soon. Bye.