Explorers Or Boys Messing About Flashcards

"expedition...farce"

semantic contrast emphasises the failure of the mission by contrasting the serious "expedition" with "farce"

"Royal Navy, the RAF and British coastguards"

tricolon emphasises sheer size of rescue mission

"tens of thouands of pounds"

hyperbole and alliteration emphasise sheer amount of money + size of travesty

"claims the team were planning to fly from the North to South pole in their "trust helicopter"

personification of website and inverted commas highlights sarcastic tone

"explorers or boys messing about"

diminutive common noun humiliates men and colloquial language downplays their actions as silly and ridiculous. Juxtaposition between explorers and boys

"ditched...scrambled"

active voice puts blame on them plus word choice highlights chaos and lack of care/control, humiliating them

"Mr Brooks, 42, and 40 year old Mr Smith"

formal proper nouns and ages contrasts 'boys', making their actions seem infantile and beneath their dignity.

"distress signals"

sibilance and alliteration highlight their misuse of government resources.

Brietling emergency watch"

pre-modifiers hint at wealth and social status, suggesting that his wealth is the reason for his carelessness.

"180 miles away"

statistics highlight huge effort involved

"survival suits"

sibilance - they could easily have survived

"steaming"

present continuous verb highlights how quick the government response was.

"nothing short of a miracle"

Speech marks add mocking tone

"Both men are experienced adventurers"

simple sentence highlights how they should have known better

"Everest...Himalayas"

semantic field of mountains highlight their experience

"Zambezi river...Congo"

mentions of locations show how they have faced more dangerous situations

"honeymoon flying the helicopter from Alaska to Chile"

Alliteration emphasises class and privelidge

"hit the headlines"

alliteration highlights their notoriety

"ironically, one of the aims of the expedition...good relations"

sarcastic tone highlights writer's criticisims (biased)

"wisdom"

repetition infantilises them and suggests they were in the wrong

"the taxpayer would pick up the bill"

idiom highlights people's anger

"they'll probably have their bottoms kicked"

colloquial language emphasises lightness of punishment and compares them to children,

Structure

taxpayer repeated throughout, reminding readers of the personal effect on them

"Farce" , "Bottoms kicked" , "Boys messing about with a helicopter" ,

comical words and phrases used emphasise their childish nature

"could I call the emergency people?"

question - lack of urgency

"Russian authorities"

in trouble with authority figures - childisj

"pushing it to the maximum"

noun - carelessness and curiousness to see how long it would last, like children

plucked

verb - emphasises how small they are and how easy rescue was

trusty helicopter

irony - emphasises boys' foolishness

Builds up picture of disaster before emphasising experience of explorers

highlights scale of disaster and how bad the boys messed up - before you find out experience, you are predispositioned to believe them irresponsable