No trace

There's 'no trace' if there is no sign a person was there

Today's story: Colombian kids
Explore more: Lesson #584
Keywords:

Take control of your English

Use active strategies to finally go from good to great

Listen

  • Learning speed
  • Full speed

Learn

TranscriptQuizPractice writing (6)
Simple TranscriptEspañol中文FrançaisPortuguês日本語ItalianoDeutschTürkçePolski

No trace

Today’s expression is “no trace.” “There’s no trace of something” means that there is no sign or indication of something.

You can use “no trace” in two situations. One, you can use it when something does not exist. You’ve searched for it and you have no evidence that it even exists. The second way to use it is when you’re searching for something, and you think it exists, but you can’t see any clues about it. There’s no evidence , but you think it exists.

That second way is how I used “no trace” in today’s lesson about the search for the missing kids in the Amazon jungle . A plane went down. It was carrying three adults and four children. After two weeks of searching, rescuers found the wreckage of the plane. In the wreckage, they found bodies of three adults. They were in the front of the plane, the part that hit the ground the hardest.

But there was no trace of the kids. That means, there was no evidence of them. There were no signs of them. Their bodies were not found. Parts of their bodies were not found. There was no note , no sign, no signal , no recording , no evidence of where they might have been. There was no trace of those kids. And that set off a frantic search , which ended with happy news many weeks later.

Imagine that you come home one day—and I hope this never happens to you—but imagine you come home and find that your house has been robbed . Someone has stolen valuables from your house. One thing that you might look for, or police might look for, is a sign of “ forced entry .” Forced entry means, did someone break a window? Did someone knock in a door ? Did someone use physical force to get in?

Sometimes after a robbery , there is no trace of forced entry. “There is no trace of forced entry” means there is no evidence, no sign, that someone used force to get in. So maybe the door was unlocked , or the thief had a key, or something else.

If you go to national parks in the United States, you might see a sign asking you to “leave no trace” that you were there. That means, when you walk out of the park, you should leave no sign that you have even been there.

You should leave the park in the same condition—or hopefully better—than you found it. That means, don’t leave trash . Don’t take things home with you—rocks, minerals , plants, flowers. Don’t trample on the vegetation . Don’t kill animals. Leave no sign, no signal that you were even there. Enjoy it, but when you leave, make sure it’s in the same condition that you found it.

I don’t recommend it, but if you take cocaine or other party drugs when you go out at night, the safest thing is to test the drugs for fentanyl . That is unfortunately something you have to do now. You heard in Lesson 551 that producers of drugs are including cheaper fentanyl in the mix —but if there’s too much fentanyl, it can kill you. And it is killing a lot of people.

The safest thing to do—if you are going to use these drugs—is to use a test strip that looks for the presence of fentanyl. If there’s no trace of fentanyl, the strip will come up negative, and that’s a good sign . Taking the drug isn’t exactly healthy, but at least there’s no trace of fentanyl in there.

Quote of the Week

I had this quote picked out even before I wrote today’s story, even before I had heard about the rescue of the missing kids . But it works. It’s a quote posted on the main tennis stadium in Paris. I saw it while I was watching the French Open tennis tournament. The tournament and complex are named after Roland Garros, a French fighter pilot . And the quote is his: “Victory belongs to the most tenacious .”

Tenacious means “ determined .” You don’t quit easily. “Victory belongs to the most tenacious,” says Roland Garros, a quote that can be applied to the kids who survived in the jungle and also to the rescue crews who didn’t give up on them.

See you next time!

And that’s all for today’s Plain English. We had such a great time in the ChatGPT Challenge that I decided to create a special course about how to use ChatGPT and artificial intelligence in your English learning. And I’m building it out, a little bit every week, inside of Plain English Plus+.

So if you were in the Challenge—or even if you weren’t—if you like ChatGPT, if you like artificial intelligence, we are compiling all the best strategies , tools, prompts , and ideas to help you use this amazing new technology in your English learning.

There are already multiple training modules available. And we’re making a huge index of prompts in a Google Sheet. So you can just look at the sheet and browse the dozens of ChatGPT prompts specifically designed , specifically tested by me, to help you achieve your goals in English.

Now, if you’re a member of Plain English Plus+, and a lot of you are, then the good news is, you already have this. You don’t have to do anything. Just scroll to the bottom of your dashboard, and voila. You’re in.

If you’re not a member of Plain English Plus+, that’s okay too. You can sign up at PlainEnglish.com/Plus and you’ll get access to all the modules we’ve released, and all the future content that we put out while you are a member. And you’ll have access to it the minute it’s available.

So check that out, the new AI for Learning English course inside Plain English Plus+. Join today if you’re not yet a member, PlainEnglish.com/Plus.

Learn to express your best ideas

Get the tools you need to speak more fluently in English

Free trial

We speak your language

Learn English words faster with instant, built-in translations of key words into your language

Free trial

We speak your language

Learn English words faster with instant, built-in translations of key words into your language

Free trial

We speak your language

Learn English words faster with instant, built-in translations of key words into your language

Free trial

We speak your language

Learn English words faster with instant, built-in translations of key words into your language

Free trial

We speak your language

Learn English words faster with instant, built-in translations of key words into your language

Free trial

We speak your language

Learn English words faster with instant, built-in translations of key words into your language

Free trial

We speak your language

Learn English words faster with instant, built-in translations of key words into your language

Free trial

We speak your language

Learn English words faster with instant, built-in translations of key words into your language

Free trial

We speak your language

Learn English words faster with instant, built-in translations of key words into your language

Free trial

Test your knowledge

Take a 4-question quiz to make sure you understand today’s Expression

Improve your English writing

Write a sentence using this expression and get personal, human feedback to help you improve

test content

[/mepr-rules]
Story: Colombian kids