Made of

Made of

“Made of”

When you talk about the ingredients in a final product, you can use the expression “made of.” And you say that something is “made of” its main ingredients. This is used in the physical world; it can be about food, or it can be about other things.

Let’s start by imagining a pizza ; this is something we’re all familiar with . What is a cheese pizza made of? In New York, a cheese pizza is made of gluten-heavy dough, tomato sauce, spices, and mozzarella cheese. That’s what it’s made of. Those are the foundational ingredients that combine to make a pizza.

But what if you’re making pizza dough? What is pizza dough made of? Most pizza dough is made of flour, yeast, water, salt, and olive oil.

That’s food, but “made of” can be used for many types of physical things. Think of classic furniture—think of a bookcase or a dresser that was made many years ago. That furniture is probably made of solid wood. That means a furniture-maker created it from solid wood.

But now think of modern lower-cost discount furniture stores. Are the bookcases you buy at Ikea made of solid wood? No, they are not. They are made of particleboard. That’s like wood pieces and sawdust formed in the right shape.

When you use “made of,” you don’t have to state every ingredient or material used to make a final product. If you want to, you can say only the main material. You can say that a boat is made of fiberglass. That’s the main material, but of course there are others, metal, glass, wood, and others. But if the main material is fiberglass, you can say the boat is made of fiberglass.

The band Coldplay released an album called “Moon Music.” And they released it on vinyl too, on a record. But not just any record. These records are made of plastic removed from the ocean. There’s a lot of plastic floating in the ocean. And a Dutch nonprofit teamed up with Coldplay to create a vinyl record made of recovered plastic from the ocean.

I don’t drop my phone. I don’t knock it off tables. I don’t abuse it. I don’t drop it in a swimming pool, a bathtub, or worse. But a lot of people do drop their phones. And so phone makers advertise how strong and durable their phones are. Apple says its iPhone 15 is made of Grade 5 titanium.

I have no idea what Grade 5 titanium is, or whether it’s a lot better than Grade 4 or Grade 3. But Apple helpfully informs us that its new iPhones are made of the same material that NASA uses in space rockets.

See you next time!

That should probably be strong enough for most household accidents, right? I would think. I don’t know.

Anyway, we made it to the end of Plain English number 699. Number 700 is coming up on Monday. While you wait, make sure to do all the great exercises associated with this story. We have listening, pronunciation, grammar, and vocabulary exercises. Plus, you can practice using the expression “made of.” That’s all at PlainEnglish.com/699. See you next time.