IELTS Preparation Series 2, Episode 16: Glass Artist
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Hello. I'm Margot Politis. Welcome to Study English, IELTS preparation.
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Today we're going to look at how English users indicate negative meanings. One of the ways
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we can do that is with the word not.
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And we're going to hear a glass artist talk about his craft. The ancient art of hot glassblowing
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dates back 5,000 years to the Egyptians. Listen to Mark Douglass, the artist, talking about
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glassblowing today.
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I think people are fascinated about glass, in a sense, I know my grandmother had a beautiful
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glass vase on her dressing table or whatever, and it was always, "Don't break the vase,"
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you know, it's this precious thing.
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The techniques I use for glassmaking aren't that dissimilar than what has been around
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for, like, centuries.
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When English speakers want to give something a negative meaning, they use negative words
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such as:
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not - She's not coming
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no - There's no music
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nobody - Nobody saw the crash
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nothing - There's nothing to eat
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nowhere - He's nowhere to be seen.
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All these sentences have only one negative. When constructing negative sentences, English
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only allows one negative.
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Using two negative words, such as 'nobody' and 'not' together in a sentence, can give
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the opposite meaning to the one intended.
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So, for example:
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I did not see nobody.
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With this double negative, this literally means:
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I saw somebody.
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However, watch Mark Douglass again, and see how he uses a double negative to give a positive
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meaning.
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The techniques I use for glassmaking aren't that dissimilar than what has been around
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for, like, centuries.
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Mark says:
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The techniques aren't dissimilar.
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Aren't is a contraction of are and not.
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So he uses the negative word form not.
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Dissimilar is made up of the negative prefix dis- and the word similar.
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So he uses not and dis-, both negatives, in one phrase.
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These cancel each other's effect, giving a positive meaning:
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Look what happens when we leave them both out.
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The techniques are not dissimilar.
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The techniques are similar.
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By saying the techniques are not dissimilar, he is drawing attention to the fact that this
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may be surprising, and not what you might expect.
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He's saying that it's surprising that the techniques used today are similar to ancient
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techniques.
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This idea is reinforced by Mark using the negative word unchanged when talking about
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the techniques.
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Listen to how he uses unchanged.