Speak Better English with Harry | Episode 88

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• 00:10

  Hi there.

• 00:10

  This is Harry, and welcome back to the podcast.

• 00:13

  And the third podcast is a look, again at a sentence with some explanation of some grammar points in that.

• 00:20

  And for this podcast, I've picked, again some reference to Brexit.

• 00:26

  In this particular sentence, it's reiterating, the point that the UK government have made consistently is that this backstop, this guarantee, is not acceptable to them and has to go if they want to sign off on an agreement before they leave Brexit.

• 00:46

  Okay, so let me give you the first reading.

• 00:49

  First and foremost, the UK now insists the backstop, the legal guarantee to avoid the return of a hard border in Ireland has to go.

• 00:59

  And when this is written, you will see two dashes or hyphens, because they're using certain control of the language to make a point.

• 01:09

  So the first part, first and foremost, the UK now insists the backstop, and then they want to go on and explain what the backstop is.

• 01:16

  So there's a dashboard, the backstop, the legal guarantee to avoid the return of a hard border in Ireland.

• 01:24

  And then the second dash, or hyphen has to go.

• 01:28

  Okay?

• 01:29

  So really, what they're saying, first and foremost, the UK now insists the backstop has to go.

• 01:35

  So that's what they're saying.

• 01:36

  The backstop has to go.

• 01:38

  And in the middle of the sentence, they're actually giving you their quick interpretation of what, what the backstop is.

• 01:45

  So we could take that clause out, okay?

• 01:48

  And the sentence would still make sense.

• 01:49

  We could say, first and foremost, the UK now insists the backstop has to go.

• 01:55

  And then when we put in the clause, it's used to give you additional information, the legal guarantee to avoid the return of a hard border in Ireland.

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