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Vocabulary: Crime and Criminals
The topic of crime and criminals can often come up in oral exams, perhaps in relation to living in cities, or when talking about travel experiences.
It’s an area that often causes confusion. For example, look at these two confusing pairs: steal or rob? Well, you steal money or things, but you rob a person or a business. So:
- he stole the money from the bank = he robbed the bank
- she stole my money = she robbed me
- they stole a painting from the art gallery = they robbed the art gallery
Obviously we can’t cover all types of crime in this post, so we’ve chosen to focus on street crime. It’s a good idea to work on word families here, so study this table on the nouns we us for the crime itself and who committed it, and the appropriate verb to use.
Grammar Focus: Modal Verbs
Modal verbs have many functions. For example, can and could express ability and permission, and should, have to and must express obligation, prohibition, and advice. But today we’re focusing on the use of must, might, could, may and can’t for speculation and deduction. We’ll start by revising how to use them in the present.
Situation: You see a strange light in the sky
100% negative: It isn’t the sun
99% – sure: It can’t be a torch
50% sure: It might / might not be a flare / It may / may not be a planet / It could be a UFO
99% + sure: It must be a plane or a helicopter
100% positive: It’s a plane
NOTE: The opposite of ‘must’ in this context is ‘can’t’ (not ‘mustn’t’). If we want to make a 50% deduction, we use ‘might not’ or ‘may not’ (but not ‘could not’).
When we talk about crime and criminals, we often don’t know all the details of the case, so we have to guess, or speculate. And in order to speculate about the past, the grammar we need to use is modal perfects: modal verb + have + past participle.
iStuation: there’s been a bank robbery:
100% negative: It wasn’t me!
99% – sure: It can’t have been Fred Blogs – he was in Australia at the time of the robbery.
50% sure: It might have been Jane Doe – a witness saw her near the scene of the crime. But the witness may have been lying … it could have been Peter Black – he’s got a criminal record.
99% + sure: But according to video footage of the scene, it was a woman, so it must have been Doe!
100% positive: It was Jane Doe.
Criminals & CSI
Practise using modal verbs by completing this text about criminals and the TV forensic team on CSI.
Crime and Criminals: Mini-test
Now try this mini-test to practise your crime vocabulary.
Next Steps
You’ll find lots more vocabulary and grammar practice in our Guide.
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