Much less

Much less

Today’s expression is “much less.” A fellow listener of yours noticed this in a previous episode and wrote to me on Facebook asking me about it. And then as I was writing today’s episode, I found myself using that expression again, so I figured, why not share the full context of this little linguistic device with everyone else? That’s only fair, right?

You can use “much less” when what you’re about to say is definitely true because of something you said first. What you’re about to say is definitely true because of something you said first. Now, it sounds confusing, but I promise it’s not. I’m going to give you tons of examples today, and every time you hear the words “much less” I want you to think in your mind “definitely”. If the first thing is true, then the next thing is definitely true.

So here we go. Back in episode 9, we were talking about how Saudi Arabia would allow movie theaters for the first time in decades, but the government would cut out any scenes they didn’t want their people to see. Someone in Saudi Arabia said the government would cut out any kissing scenes, much less anything more romantic than that. The government won’t let citizens see kissing—and they definitely won’t let them see anything more romantic than kissing.

And here is how I used it today: It is impossible to know how many uncontacted tribes there are in the world, much less how many people there are in these tribes. If we don’t know how many tribes there are, we definitely don’t know how many people are living in these tribes. Get it?

Here are a few more examples. I can’t run a mile, much less a marathon. That means, if I can’t run a mile, I definitely can’t run a marathon—a 26-mile race. It’s even more certain that I can’t run a marathon if I can’t even run a mile. I can’t run a mile, much less a marathon. That’s how you use it. So now listen to a few more examples.

I don’t know what I’m doing tomorrow, much less next Monday. Hey, if I can’t look one day into the future, don’t ask me to look seven days in the future.

I have a hard time waking up at 7:00 a.m., much less 5:30. If 7:00 is hard, then 5:30 is definitely hard!

I can’t even cook a plate of spaghetti, much less 2,000 chef-inspired meals like the robot we talked about a few episodes back.

This is a good little trick to be able to use and I encourage you to practice it. It’s really not hard at all and it comes in handy sometimes.

By the way, these examples were for illustration only. Don’t worry: I can run a mile. I can get up at 5:30 if I have to. I can and do cook. And unfortunately, I know I what I’m doing next Monday, which is going to work.

And I also know what you’re doing next Monday, which is downloading a new episode of Plain English. That’s because we have new episodes every Monday and Thursday. You never have to worry about missing an episode if you subscribe to Plain English on your Apple Podcasts app or if you click “follow” on Spotify.