Lexis: corruption, fraud and counterfeiting

🔊 المعلّمة تقرأ لك

A backhander, a kickback, a sweetener: three informal names for one and the same thing — a bribe, the illegal payment made to a person in order to persuade him or her to do you a favour. Corruption and fraud have a vocabulary of their own, and it is the vocabulary of the newspapers. So how do you name, precisely, the ways people cheat?

🎓في نهاية هذا الدرس ستكون قادرا على:

تسمية الرشوة والفساد: ⁦a bribe, to bribe, bribery, to corrupt, corrupt, corruption⁩
تسمية أشكال الاحتيال: ⁦embezzlement, false accounting, tax evasion, money laundering, counterfeiting⁩
التمييز بين الاسم والفعل والصفة في عائلة الكلمة الواحدة، مثل ⁦corrupt (v)⁩ و ⁦corrupt (adj)⁩
التعبير عن السلوك الأخلاقيّ بمفردات مثل ⁦ethical behaviour, ethical issues, a code of ethics, probity⁩

🔑يفترض هذا الدرس أنّك تتقن:

أقسام الكلمة: الفعل والاسم والصفة
السابقات المنفية مثل ⁦dis-⁩ و ⁦un-⁩
الحاضر البسيط في التعريف بالأشياء

1. Corruption: a bribe, bribery, corrupt

ألفاظ الفساد عائلات: اسم للفعلة ⁦(a bribe)⁩، واسم للممارسة ⁦(bribery, corruption)⁩، وأفعال ⁦(to bribe, to corrupt)⁩، وصفة ⁦(corrupt)⁩. انظر إلى قسم الكلمة لتضعها في مكانها.

The words of corruption come in families: a noun for the act (a bribe), nouns for the practice (bribery, corruption), verbs (to bribe, to corrupt) and an adjective (corrupt). Notice that corrupt is both a verb (to corrupt someone) and an adjective (a corrupt person). To place each word in a sentence, look at its class — (n) noun, (v) verb, (adj) adjective — and at the word before the blank: after a, a noun; after to, a verb; after is, often an adjective.

The box

corrupt (v)bribery (n)corruption (n)bribe (n)bribe (v)corrupt (adj)

Text A — Fill in the blanks with the words of the box. Some words can be used more than once.

A …(1) is the illegal payment made to a person in order to persuade her or him to do you a favour. Informally, it is called a backhander, a kickback or a sweetener. To …(2) a civil servant is to …(3) her or him. Anyone who accepts …(4) is …(5) and is involved in …(6). In informal English, this is called sleaze.

Task 1 — the answers, and the clue for each

انظر إلى الكلمة التي تسبق كلّ فراغ: هل تنتظر اسما أم فعلا أم صفة؟

(1) bribe (n) — after « A »: a noun.
(2) bribe (v) — after « To »: a verb.
(3) corrupt (v) — after « to »: to corrupt her or him.
(4) bribes — the noun bribe, in the plural, after « accepts ».
(5) corrupt (adj) — after « is »: the adjective.
(6) corruption (n) — after « involved in »: a noun (bribery is also possible).

Complete, the text becomes a set of definitions: keep it — it tells you what each word means.

2. Fraud: embezzlement, money laundering, tax evasion

الاحتيال اسم عامّ للحصول على المال بطريق غير مشروع بخداع الناس، ولأشكاله أسماء دقيقة: ⁦embezzlement, false accounting, tax evasion, money laundering, counterfeiting⁩.

Fraud is the general word for getting money illegally by deceiving people. Its forms have precise names: embezzling or embezzlement, false accounting, tax evasion, money laundering, currency counterfeiting. Counterfeiting belongs to the same family: to counterfeit is to copy something in order to deceive; copying songs or games illegally on the Internet is called piracy.

Five frauds

embezzlingfalse accountingcurrency counterfeitingtax evasionmoney laundering

Texts B and C — Fill in the blanks with the words of each box.

Box B: embezzler · accountant · embezzlement · false invoices · fraud · bank accounts B. …(1) is a type of …(2) where someone illegally gets money from their employer. For example, an …(3) who sends …(4) to the company he works for, and pays money from his company into …(5) of false companies he has « created » is an …(6). Box C: money · cash deposit · money laundering · tax inspectors · criminal organisations C. …(1) consists in hiding the illegal origin of …(2). For instance, …(3) may buy property with money from drugs in order to disguise its origin from …(4). When they sell the property, the money becomes « legal ». Most banks now help stop …(5) by telling the police and tax inspectors when someone makes a large …(6).

Task 2 — the answers

حدّد قسم كلّ كلمة في الإطار، ثمّ ضعها حيث يطلبها معنى الجملة.

B. (1) Embezzlement · (2) fraud · (3) accountant · (4) false invoices · (5) bank accounts · (6) embezzler.
C. (1) Money laundering · (2) money · (3) criminal organisations · (4) tax inspectors · (5) money laundering · (6) cash deposit.

Read the two texts again: they are the definitions of embezzlement — getting money illegally from one's employer — and of money laundering — hiding the illegal origin of money.

3. Right and wrong: the words of ethics

لوصف السلوك النزيه وغير النزيه نستعمل ألفاظ الأخلاق: ⁦ethical behaviour⁩ ما كان صوابا أخلاقيّا، و ⁦unethically⁩ بخلافه، و ⁦a code of ethics⁩ وثيقة تحدّد السلوك المطلوب.

Text D — Fill in the blanks with the words of the box.

Box D: wrong · right · ethical behaviour · unethically · ethical issues · code of ethics To have an …(1) consists in doing things that are morally right. Areas where choices have to be made about what is …(2) and what is …(3) are called …(4). Some organisations have a …(5) where they say what their managers' and employees' behaviour should be in order to prevent them from behaving …(6).

Task 3 — the answers

الإجابات: ستّ كلمات من ألفاظ الأخلاق.

(1) ethical behaviour · (2) right · (3) wrong (2 and 3 can change places) · (4) ethical issues · (5) code of ethics · (6) unethically. An ethical behaviour is doing what is morally right; an ethical issue is an area where we must choose between right and wrong; a code of ethics tells managers and employees how they should behave.

Find the odd one out in each group, and say why.

A. fraud · corruption · business · money laundering B. false accounting · creative accounting · auditing · tax evasion C. to smuggle · to bribe · to trade · to counterfeit D. auditor · accountant · economist · customs officer E. probity · honesty · loyalty · abuse

Task 4 — the odd ones out, and why

في كلّ مجموعة كلمة لا تنتمي إلى الثلاث الأخرى: ما هي؟ ولماذا؟

A. business — fraud, corruption and money laundering are dishonest, illegal practices; business is an honest activity.
B. auditing — false accounting, creative accounting and tax evasion are dishonest ways of dealing with accounts and taxes; auditing is the checking of accounts, which fights them.
C. to trade — smuggling, bribing and counterfeiting are illegal; trading is a legal activity.
D. customs officer — auditors, accountants and economists work with the accounts and figures of companies; a customs officer checks goods at the border.
E. abuse — probity, honesty and loyalty are qualities; abuse is a wrong act.

Do this alone, in writing. Choose three words of this lesson — one of corruption, one of fraud, one of ethics — and write a definition of each in your own words, as in a dictionary. Then check your definitions against the texts of the lesson: does each one say who does what, and why it is wrong?

اختر وحدك ثلاث كلمات من الدرس، واحدة من كلّ قسم، واكتب لكلّ منها تعريفا بأسلوبك كما في القاموس.

A model answer

A bribe is money given illegally to someone, a civil servant for example, so that he or she does you a favour. Money laundering is hiding the illegal origin of money, for example by buying property and selling it again. A code of ethics is a document in which an organisation says how its managers and employees should behave.

In the exam, vocabulary is tested on the text: you find a word that is closest in meaning to a definition, or you complete a text with words from a box. Have three things ready: ① the families — a bribe, to bribe, bribery; to corrupt, corrupt, corruption; embezzlement, an embezzler; ② the names of the frauds: embezzlement, false accounting, tax evasion, money laundering, counterfeiting; ③ the class of each word, given by the word before the blank. The frequent mistake is to confuse the noun and the adjective: a corrupt official is involved in corruption, not « in corrupt ».

What I keep — A bribe (informally a backhander, a kickback, a sweetener) is an illegal payment to persuade someone to do you a favour; to bribe someone is to corrupt him or her, and whoever accepts bribes is corrupt and involved in corruption. Fraud takes many forms: embezzlement, false accounting, tax evasion, money laundering, counterfeiting. Ethical behaviour is doing what is morally right, and a code of ethics says how managers and employees should behave.

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