"Inverse 'let alone'"

[Ben Zimmer]

On Tue, May 22, 2012 at 8:42 PM, David A. Daniel wrote:
>
> Normally, "let alone" goes from the broad to the narrow, the general to the
> specific, from easy to hard, from more accessible to less accessible. "I've
> never been to France, let alone Paris," is what I would usually expect to
> hear. Easy to hard would be, "I don't have a hundred dollars, let alone ten
> thousand," or "I can't even understand algebra, let alone calculus." Same
> with "not to mention" and "much less."

And see these Language Log posts by Mark Liberman:

"much less"/"or even":
http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=2994

"let alone":
http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=3387

--bgz

--
Ben Zimmer
http://benzimmer.com/

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org