Made of or made from

Question

As far as I know, "made of" is used when the material doesn't change but when it is transformed "made from" should be used. However, I came across the following sentence while reading an article on "eating out in restaurants" in an FCE book:

"... fortunately, all (wine) glasses are made from unbreakable glass."

I don't understand why "made from" is used here while glass is still glass. Can you offer a logical explanation?

NOTE: I've already studied previous similar questions but couldn't find an answer.

Possibly the 'unbreakable glass' is used as a raw material but alloyed with other substances during wineglass construction, or the text glosses over this fact that the material is actually created from base elements during the process of making the wineglasses. 'Unbreakable' wineglasses (that aren't simply plastic, acrylic, etc.) are amalgamations of various materials. — Esoteric Screen Name, May 26 '14 at 02:47
Related: http://ell.stackexchange.com/a/11246/3281. (Even though the OP might've already read that answer, I believe that the linked answer could be useful for others.) — Damkerng T., May 26 '14 at 18:12
possible duplicate of Why is wine made 'from' grapes, but tables are made 'of' wood? — FumbleFingers, Dec 06 '14 at 14:01

score 1 · Answer 1 · answered May 25 '14 at 19:31

Without technical knowledge, I would assume that unbreakable glass is a type of glass material.
This would then be heated and blown, molded, etc. to make the finished (wine) glasses.

As such I would say it is transformed from the raw material into the finished (wine) glasses, so using made from should be OK.

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered May 26 '14 at 09:04

0

The unbreakable glass that is in question must definitely have been mixed with some other substance to form an alloy of which the glasses were finally made.

You would then say that the glasses were made of this alloy.

answered May 26 '14 at 09:04

Veronica Diamond

141
3

Made of or made from

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