English Hi, I'm Neil.

Joining Me is Katherine Chinea.

So what's her story today?

Story?

Nian is about a food that a lot of people around the world eat for breakfast, but which could actually be bad for your health and on the healthy breakfast.

Okay, let's find out more about that from this BBC News Bulletin.

Government scientists are warning that over cooked foods such as potatoes, toast, crisps and waffles could increase the risk of developing cancer.

The Food Standards Agency says a potentially harmful compound called acrylamide is produced when starchy foods a roasted, fried or grilled for too long at high temperatures.

So starch is the white substance that you get in foods such as potatoes when you cut them or you can see it when you soak rice in water, that white stuff that comes out that's called starch Now British government agency has said that starchy foods like breads, potatoes if you cook them too long, they can actually cause cancer.

So if you burn your toast in the morning meal and eat it, that can potentially be quite dangerous.

Well, I often burned my toast.

Eso I will look at this story with interest.

You've been checking out the story on the various news websites and picked out three items of vocabulary I have and we have over potential on Browned off over potential and browned off.

So what's your first headline then?

OK, so we're going to the independent on their headline says Overcooked potatoes and burned toast could cause cancer.

New research suggests Okay, so over here, used as a perfect so prefix to mean too much?

Absolutely Yes, it's quite, um, it's very handy, isn't it?

This over meaning too much.

You can put it in front of hundreds and hundreds of words, and it just means too much of something.

So here we have it in front of you can use it in front of a verb to overcook something means to cook something too much, or you can make it into an objective or a passive.

So in the headline, we have overcooked potatoes and it means too much Too much cooking.

Yeah, So we have other examples.

Verbs, um to overdo.

Yep.

You can overdo pretty much anything.

The if you go out running one day jogging and you come back exhausted.

Yes, I can say I know he's overdone.

The jogging.

I've been over doing it.

You've been over doing it.

Yes.

Don't overdo it.

Don't overdo it.

You can also use it with adjectives.

Can you?

Yeah, you can.

You can be if you go running this running thing you've been judging all day long you come back from Yes, you're over heart.

I'm over hot and you're also probably over tired.

Absolutely.

Just like the kids After a long day.

Yes, there's nothing worse.

They had over tired.

And, um now I notice in that headline had a hyphen over hyphen cook.

Yeah, but in the dictionary, I used to look this word up.

There was no hyphen.

So what's going on?

Although the hyphen hyphen is a cheeky little monkey, and hyphens will appear in some places and disappear in other places that there's quite often even dictionaries don't agree about hyphens.

So, as a general rule, check in the dictionary.

But don't worry if they're inconsistent.

One dictionary says hyphen.

The other one says, Don't go with what you like and be consistent.

Yeah, And you will.

Also, it's quite frustrating.

Probably you will see the word with a hyphen.

Maybe on one particular news outlet.

Yeah, website.

And then you'll see it differently on the BBC.

Happens all the time because nobody really knows.

Yeah, on, uh, these organizations have their own style guide.

They've decided they should be consistent within their own output.

But yes, it doesn't mean that you will find consistent.

So do your best with hyphens.

I think that's a That's a me thing When, when it comes to things I overcooked.

So we're looking now at BBC news website.

Our headline here is browned toast and potatoes Are potential cancer risk say food scientists.

So potential?

Yes.

So potential describing something impossible in the right circumstances.

Yeah.

Yeah, exactly that.

Yes.

So it's when it's brown toast.

Overcooked toast.

There's a potential a possibility that it will cause cancer and it's used here is an objective.

Yep.

Um, Andi, it's used that way quite a lot, isn't it?

I mean, you looked on the news.

In fact, on this very day, if you have a quick look around the Web you confined in news headlines all over the place.

We've got potential takeover potential closure on potential target.

And that's just today and news.

Headline writers love potential because it sums up a lot of meaning in just one word.

It's possible if the circumstances are a particular way, but we can apply it to our everyday English quite easily.

It's also used quite a lot to describe a person's possible future.

Yes, we use it.

Yes, absolutely.

We can use it to describe after we use it in educational contexts, often in job interviews.

So you interview somebody for a job.

First post first job.

They say this person is quite good now, but they've got a lot of potential potential means future possibility for success, growth and development.

Yes.

Do you think I have a lot of potential?

I think you could quite be a quite a good English language teaching producer.

Neil.

One day, if you keep working, I'll keep keep trying.

Keep trying.

You saying that I have the potential to become, you know you have the potential to be quite good at your job, Neil.

I think that's another set expression, isn't it?

Toe Have the potential to do something.

It is?

Yes.

Okay.

Now, before I get angry or even browned off, let's look at our next headline.

Okay, because I was being a bit cheeky there.

Yes.

So let's move on then.

To the guardian?

Yep.

On our headline here is Save our crisp potatoes.

Why I'm browned off about the cancer warning.

Okay, well, on this program before we've talked about puns Yep.

Puns are a play on words where you take a newspaper headline writer will taken expression, which has a particular idiomatic meaning, but the meaning will comment on the story that the headline is describing.

So it's got a double meaning, double meaning and usually quite sort of clever and witty and entertaining and amusing.

So this is a light headline.

It's not looking at the serious side of the story too much.

This person is saying they're browned off about the cancer warning.

Now browned off means unhappy if you're brought off your unhappy about something.

But of course, the color off this these toast on the potatoes and everything else is brown.

So it's a nice sort of circular way of saying you're not happy about brown food?

Yes, yes.

You are browned off this morning when you I'm browned off quite a lot these days But today in particular Well, I've just been on holiday I came back.

Weather is horrible.

I had to get up early, so I wasn't too happy.

This morning I was browned off about having to come to work.

Really?

I'm happy now, though.

Now I've seen you.

What a shame.

Okay.

Before we recap the words we've been looking at, we have a Facebook challenge as ever on.

We've been talking about toast amongst other foods on Everyone knows that toast is a type of food.

But do you know that you can describe a person as toast?

But what does it mean?

Is it a They are sunburnt be they are hot or see they're going to have serious problems.

Was the reply Okay, so we got a lot of answers as usual, Quite a mixed response.

But those who said and I'll start with Don Dung, Tran Van who said your toast means you are in a lot of trouble and that's answer C is out.

The the correct answer.

You can say some things.

Toast as warm as toast, toasty, warm or toasty, warm or toasty.

But if you're just talking about a person who is toast, it means they're in a lot of trouble.

So, arch Gauna said, See Amir Ayyoub and lots of other people see your toast.

It means you're in trouble.

Yeah, my toast on a regular basis, I think.

Okay, well, before I get browned off along this abuse I've been receiving today I will just ask you to summarize what we talked about.

I will.

On.

We had over uses the prefix to mean too much.

We talked about potential, which describes a possibility that can happen in the right circumstances on then we had browned off, which means angry or annoyed.

Well, we don't want you to get browned off so you could test yourself on this vocabulary with a quiz on our website, BBC Learning english dot com.

And you can find all sorts of other videos and games and activities to help you improve your English There.

Thanks for joining us and good bye, Good bye.