US.

President Joe Biden says it's one of the largest tornado outbreaks in U.

S history.

Hello, I'm Rob, and this is news review from BBC Learning English, and joining me today is Roy.

Hello, Roy.

Hi, Rob and hello, everybody.

If you would like to test yourself on the vocabulary around this story, all you need to do is head to our website BBC Learning english dot com to take a quiz.

But now, let's hear more about this story from this BBC news report.

More than 90 people are now known to have been killed by devastating tornadoes that swept through the Midwest of the United States on Friday.

At least 80 of them were in Kentucky and about 14 across five other states, so more than 90 people are now confirmed dead after tornadoes hit the Midwest of the US on Friday.

Most of the confirmed dead are in Kentucky.

Sadly, some people believe that that number of dead is still expected to rise, and we've got three words and expressions from the news headlines about this story that we can use to talk about this story.

What are they?

Please, Roy, we do.

We have wiped out hell on earth and trail of destruction.

So that's wiped out hell on earth and trail of destruction.

Right?

Right.

Well, let's have a look at your first headline, please.

Okay, so our first headline comes from the Telegraph and it reads Kentucky Tornado.

Entire towns wiped out, says state Governor Andy Beshear.

That's wiped out, destroyed, removed from existence.

Okay, so this is a phrase a verb.

First word wiped.

W i p e d.

Second word out, O u T.

And it means to completely remove something or destroy something.

Now, this Fraser verb wipe out is actually a separable fraser verb, which means that you can wipe something out or you can wipe out something.

Now, let's focus.

First of all, on that first word wipe, Rob, you know what wipe is right?

I do.

I mean, the verb to wipe means often to clean something.

For example, I might wipe the windows to remove all the dirt and in my car I have windscreen wipers, which are those blades that go back and forwards to remove the water, remove the rain from the windscreen so I can see clearly.

So it's about removal, isn't it?

Yes, absolutely.

It's this kind of action.

Usually if we use our hands, we do that.

We wipe something away.

In this sense, when we say wiped out, it means completely removed or destroyed completely in the terms of the headlines were talking about the wiping out of the town or buildings.

Now this expression also gets used quite a bit.

When we're talking about populations and populations being eradicated from history, they're wiped out.

Yes.

Now a good example of this.

If something is removed from history, we could look at the dinosaurs.

Now we know that dinosaurs existed, but they're no longer here.

We don't have dinosaurs here with us in the modern times, but we know they existed because we have bones and fossils.

Now these animals were they went extinct.

They no longer exist.

In other words, we can say the dinosaurs were wiped out in this news story, though we're talking about towns that have been destroyed and completely eradicated because of the power of that storm.

Absolutely.

And also I've heard this expression used perhaps more informally, when people are tired and exhausted.

They say they're wiped out.

In this sense.

We use it as an adjective.

It comes after a verb.

I feel wiped out or I was wiped out.

And it's when you're talking about being extremely exhausted.

All of your energy has basically been removed, Wiped, wiped out.

So you say, uh, maybe after a long day at work, you'd say I am wiped out.

You've got zero energy left.

Yes, I feel like that quite often.

But here, of course, we're talking about a more serious context.

We're talking about this powerful tornado that's wiping out well, towns and villages.

Quite serious stuff.

That's right.

Okay, okay.

Let's have a summary of that phrase.

Mm hmm.

Mhm.

Mm.

So we talked about people being eradicated in history being wiped out.

Well, we did a program about the possibility of humans becoming extinct.

This was six minute English, and you can watch that again.

But tell us how Roy.

All you need to do is click the link in the description below.

Have a look down below.

Thanks.

Right.

Well, let's have a look at our next expression from a news headline, please.

Okay, So our next headline comes from the South China Morning Post and it reads hell on Earth.

Shock and survival after deadly tornadoes tear through six U.

S.

States.

So that's hell on Earth.

A place or situation that is terrible beyond words.

Yes.

So this is a three word expression.

First word.

Hell, H e l l Second word on o n third word Earth e a r t h.

And it basically describes a situation that is really a situational place that is incredibly horrific.

And hell, that's a religious reference, isn't it?

Yeah, absolutely.

In religion, people often describe this place hell as being a horrible place.

Um, it's full of fire punishment.

It's a terrible environment.

So if you're saying that hell has come to Earth, you're saying this place this horrible place full of evil devastation destruction has arrived on Earth.

Yeah, And in the news, we hear about situations such as war and famine as being described as hell on Earth because, you know, nature perhaps has destroyed the environment.

It's such an awful place to live or or you don't want to live there because it is so bad.

That's right.

Yeah.

And are there any other ways we can use this expression.

Well, yeah, of course.

I mean, obviously, if you're talking in that sense of, uh, these terrible situations, people also sometimes use the expression to exaggerate.

So maybe somebody is having a really bad day.

I don't know.

They missed the train.

They get stuck in the rain, their clothes get destroyed.

And they can say, all this day, it's just hell on earth.

Or you can say, like a situation between two friends that has become so hostile, so intolerable.

Um is it's like hell on earth when you have to see this person.

But again, these are examples.

I'm really exaggerating using that expression Hell on Earth.

Yeah, I say here, we're talking about a pretty serious situation over in Kentucky, where it really is like hell on earth.

Yeah, Okay, let's have a summary of that phrase.

We've discussed many things here on BBC News Review, and one of them earlier this year was about the Earth Shop Prize.

Now this surprise that Prince William was awarding two people for their contribution to helping the environment.

How can we watched that program again?

Roy, all you need to do is click the link in the description below.

Great.

Okay, let's have a look at your next headline, please.

Okay, so our next headline comes from the times and it reads tornadoes leave more than 100 dead in trail of destruction through us Midwest.

So that's trail of destruction.

Evidence of damage or chaos caused by something or someone.

Okay, so another three word expression here.

First word is trail T r A I L Second word of o f third word destruction D e s t r u c T i o n.

Now, destruction is the noun form of destroy and basically what it is, it's like a evidence that you can follow that shows that chaos and destruction caused by someone or something.

Mm.

Well, the first word trail I know the trail is I mean, I follow a trail.

Sometimes if I go out into the countryside or into the forest, I follow a route from the beginning to somewhere else.

And that is a trail that I'm following.

Absolutely.

It's it's kind of like a path, and I know you do this quite regularly.

You go on these trails and you maybe hike.

And that idea is something the trail.

There is something that you can follow.

Now, in other uses of the word trail, we talk about trail of evidence in a criminal investigation.

Maybe there has been a crime.

And a detective.

We'll follow a trail of evidence or clues to find out who committed the crime.

Now, in this sense, we're talking about the tornado in the headline story.

We're talking about a tornado leaving behind it.

A trail that you can follow to where the tornado was when it finished or where it is.

Okay, let's have a summary.

Mm hmm.

Mm.

Okay, Roy.

Time now for you to recap today's vocabulary, please.

Yes.

We had wiped out, destroyed, removed from existence.

We had a hell on Earth, place or situation.

That is terrible beyond words.

And we had trail of destruction, evidence of damage or chaos caused by something or someone.

Right.

Thank you for that, Roy.

And don't forget, you can test yourself on this vocabulary on a quiz, which is on our website at BBC learning english dot com.

That's the place to go to for lots more learning English resources.

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Well, that's all for today's program.

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Bye.

For now, Fine.