Cut back on

When you "cut back on" something, you reduce the amount of it that you do or use.

Today's story: Big Bird
Explore more: Lesson #221
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Cut back

This is just a great phrasal verb today, and timely, too, as we head into the new year. The phrasal verb is “cut back on.” To cut back on something. Let’s think about what that means. Here’s how you heard it. After more than four decades playing the over-sized Big Bird, Carol Spinney cut back on his Sesame Street duties. After 2015, he just provided the voice and let his understudy move around inside the eight-foot-tall canary. He cut back on his duties: he reduced his duties, but he didn’t give them up completely.

When you cut back on something, you are reducing the amount of it in your life. Carol Spinney cut back on his Sesame Street duties. He didn’t quit, but he just reduced his duties.

Why do I say that this is timely here at the beginning of the year? Some of you might have New Year’s resolutions that involve cutting back on things in your life. I’m going to try to cut back on my business travel in the coming year. Although I do like to be face-to-face with my clients and my teams in other cities, the travel has started to tire me out. So I’m going to try to cut back on the travel. I won’t—I can’t—eliminate it entirely. I don’t want to. But I would like to do a little bit less. I’m going to cut back on traveling.

Some of you might want to cut back on eating junk food. That’s a common New Year’s resolution. You might want to cut back on junk food, or cut back on drinking alcohol like we talked about in a recent episode. You might want to cut back on salt, if you have high blood pressure. You could cut back on watching television late at night if you find that you have trouble sleeping.

You might be seeing a pattern here. You can cut back on an activity—like watching television—or you can cut back on a thing, like salt or sugary drinks. The important thing here is that you use “cut back on” when you mean, a reduction in the amount of something.

If you want to imply more than a gradual reduction, then you can say “cut way back.” My friend went to the doctor and found he had very high blood pressure. His doctor told him to cut way back on salt. That doesn’t mean just reducing things like French fries and such. That means everything with salt and preservatives—seasonings, marinades, even pasta sauce can have a lot of salt in it. If you’re cutting way back on salt, you need to read the labels on everything and keep track of how much you have. That’s because to cut way back on something means to reduce it drastically. Reduce it a lot.

What could you cut way back on? If you lead a relatively healthy lifestyle, then you can’t “cut way back on” junk food—you’re not eating a lot of it in the first place. But if you have a sugary drink every day, then switching to just once a week would be cutting way back. You might decide your kids need to cut way back on their screen time, so you can disconnect the Wifi in your house after dinner. Talk about torture!

JR’s song of the week

The song of the week is “Bein’ Green,” by someone who would know quite a bit about bein’ green—Kermit the Frog. This was the song that Kermit always sings on Sesame Street. The creator of Sesame Street, Jim Henson, died in 1990, and Caroll Spinney sang this song, in character as Big Bird, at Henson’s funeral.

The song starts out with Kermit singing that it’s not easy being green, blending into the color of the trees and leaves. He says it would be so much better to be red or yellow or gold. But by the end of the song, he says that green is beautiful and that’s exactly what he wants to be.

It’s a song about knowing and accepting yourself. “Bein’ Green,” written by Joe Raposo and performed so often by Jim Henson as Kermit the Frog.


That’s it for this first episode of Plain English in 2020. Don’t forget to join us on Monday for another episode.

If you’re serious about improving in English in 2020, then I encourage you to check out Plain English Plus+. One of the best features of Plain English Plus+ is our video lessons. With each episode—twice a week—we highlight one little piece of grammar or English usage and we show you how to use it in a video lesson. And if you think it’s just sitting back and watching—it’s not. You get to write your own sentences right from inside the video. These videos show you the ways to connect ideas, develop your thoughts, and sound more professional in your writing and speaking. If this sounds like what you need, then come check us out at PlainEnglish.com/Plus.

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Story: Big Bird