Quote:
Originally Posted by ColinHowell
This is one of those English figures of speech which must be quite confusing for non-native speakers. Saying "... X, not to mention Y" is actually a way of stating that Y applies even more strongly to the subject than X does. Other forms with the same effect are "... X, much less Y", "... X, let alone Y", and "... X, to say nothing of Y".
I think most native English speakers use these expressions automatically to achieve this effect, without thinking about the literal meaning of the words used. Since I never think about it either, answering this question was rather difficult for me.
I found out that these expressions all come from an old technique of rhetoric (called paralipsis), in which the speaker calls attention to something by pretending not to mention it. I knew nothing about the origins of this before looking up these phrases to answer YuriTokoro's puzzlement, so even we experienced English speakers can definitely learn something here. |
Heh, thanks for the better explanation. As you say, expressing concepts that way is automatic for native English speakers but creates a lot of confusion for speakers of other languages such as Japanese.
That's why I provided a simpler revision that would be easier to understand but express the same concepts.