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Topic: No/ not |
10 October 2002 |
Both no and not are words showing negation; however, they are different.
We use no with a noun and not with a verb and an adjective.
For example:
We have no money left for the movie tickets.
We do not have enough money to buy the movie tickets.
No love can abide where there is no trust.
You do not love me if you do not trust me.
I could see no beauty in abstract paintings.
This picture is not beautiful.
However, there are some exceptions to the common usage.
For example:
This watch is no good. It has stopped working.
I would like to have a look at the silver pen, not the gold one.
Remember that double negatives make an affirmative.
For instance, "I don't think that is impossible."is equivalent to
"I think that is possible." You should avoid using double negatives
because they sound confusing and it is likely that you form a grammatically wrong sentence.
If you use double negatives like any of the followings, you will sound uneducated.
I don't speak no English.
(This will definitely show that you don't have enough competence in the language.)
He doesn't make no sense.
Jack hasn't got no money.
You might have heard these lines from a movie.
Don't take everything you hear from a native speaker or from an authentic material to be correct.
Even you make mistakes in Thai sometimes, don't you? Or will you say, "I never make no mistakes."?
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Exercise: No or Not |
| Directions : Choose the word that best completes each sentence. |
 1.Im _______ superhero.
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| 2.Im _______ a superhero. |
| 3.This book makes _______ sense to me. |
| 4.There is _______ wonder why Jim is always broke. |
| 5.We do _______ believe in miracles. |
| 6._______ mountain is too high; _______ task is too difficult. |
| 7.Do _______ make any promise you cant keep. |
| 8._______ smoking in the waiting room, please. |
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Answers |
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