Learn English with the News: “What will the name be?”

Hello you!

For those of you who don’t know yet, Kate, the future King’s wife, is pregnant.

People have begun betting what the child will be called. What do you think?

1. Read the text
2. Understand the vocabulary
3. Watch the video

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And away they go!

With less than nine months left, Britons are racing to bet on a royal name. Two favorites so far for Prince William and Kate’s baby are George and Victoria, with odds at around 10 to 1. But according to Rupert Adams from the William Hill betting shop, it’s not all about tradition.

– Obviously we are also betting on some fairly strange names too. We’ve got things like Chardonnay at a 1,000 to 1, and that currently is our worst result. I think it costs us nearly 100,000 pounds if they chose to call their child Chardonnay.”

And there might be more than one name at stake. The Duchess of Cambridge has been hospitalized suffering from severe morning sickness – a sign, some say, that she might be expecting twins. And the betting odds seem to concur.

– We put out a price of 33 to 1 that they would have twins. Since then it’s been cut to 25, that’s largely because we are told that her condition is worsened by having twins, the reason she is so ill therefore is possibly because she is having twins and we’ve seen money for that.

Then there’s the “too posh to push” question. Will she have a natural birth or a C-section?

– There was this story going around in the U.K. that anybody who was slightly posh was paying to have a C-section, walk in walk out, none of the pain, will she do it?

Whatever the duchess chooses, here’s betting it won’t be completely pain-free.

Vocabulary

Racing – to go, move, or function at a very fast speed.

Odds – the possibility that something will happen : the chance that one thing will happen instead of a different thing.

Betting – to make a bet : to risk losing something (such as money) if your guess about what will happen is wrong.

At stake – in a position to be lost or gained.

Concur – to agree with someone or something.

Video