(Robber - robbery; Shoplifter - shoplifting)
Who's the criminal and what's the crime?

In this week's one-point lesson, we take a look at the subject of crime. We will do 2 things: (1) we will check the meaning of the names of some crimes (e.g. burglary, robbery, arson); then (2) we will look at some word families associated with crime (e.g. kidnap - kidnapping - kidnapper.

The name of the crime (Exercise 1)


Here are the names of seven crimes. Can you match them to the definitions?

1. Stealing goods from a shop, by walking out of the shop without paying for them.
2. Deliberately killing somebody.
3. Taking somebody and keeping them as a prisoner, especially in order to get money.
4. Stealing money or goods from a bank, shop, person etc., especially if you use violence or threaten （脅す） to use violence.
5. Breaking into a building and stealing things from it.
6. Demanding money from a person by threatening to tell a secret about them to other people.
7. Deliberately setting fire to something, especially to a building.

When you have finished, please click here to check your answers

(Defintions based on entries from the Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary, 6th edition, 2000)

Crimes and criminals


In the previous section, we looked at the names of 7 crimes. Now, let's look at these sentences:


• They robbed a bank.
• The robbers were arrested and sent to prison.
• They were sent to prison for armed robbery.

In the examples, (1) rob is a verb; (2) robbery is the name of the crime; (3) robber is the name of the criminal - the person who committed the crime. When weapons, especially guns are used, we might say armed robber or armed robbery.


Here's another set of examples:


• The police are investigating the kidnapping.
• They've kidnapped the president's daughter and they're are asking for a million dollars.
• The government has refused to negotiate with the kidnappers.

The chart below gives a list of some crimes with the corresponding verbs and personal nouns:


Name of the crime	Verb	Name of the criminal
murder robbery burglary kidnapping shoplifting blackmail drug dealing arson theft	murder         rob burgle kidnap shoplift blackmail deal in drugs ----------- (steal)	murderer robber burglar kidnapper shoplifter blackmailer drug dealer arsonist thief

Notes:


1. Shoplift can be used as a verb, but instead of saying, "He shoplifted these cakes," we are probably more likely to say, "He stole these cakes from a shop."
2. There is no verb which comes from arson. We would probably say, "he committed arson" or "he set (the building) on fire."
3. There is a verb, thieve, but it is not used so much. We are more likely to say, "steal. However, there is an adjective, thieving. It can be used in sentences like, "That's a nice CD player. Don't let those thieving kids next door see it!"

Fill the blanks (Exercise 2)


(Note: in some cases, the form of the word may have to change e.g. burglar - burglars; burgle - burgled)

BURGLARY / BURGLE / BURGLAR


1. One of the houses in our street was __________ last night.
2. That's the third _________ this month.
3. I heard that the police have caught the _________. It was a 15-year-old boy.

DRUG DEALING / DRUG DEALER


1. In most countries, ___________ is considered a very serious crime.
2. In fact, in many South East Asian countries, __________ are often sentenced to death.

THEFT / THIEF


1. Computer _______ is on the increase.
2. A lot of things have disappeared from our office in the last few days. I think one of the staff must be a ____________.

Please click here to check your answers.

Click below if you want to try some of my other one-point lessons:
Bob's One-Point Weekly Lesson Archive

© Robert E. Jones, 2006