Can fat change into muscle, or not? What does "Fat cannot change into muscle any more than muscle can change into fat." mean?

Question

I have a problem with the interpretation of this sentence.

Fat cannot change into muscle any more than muscle can change into fat.

I guess that it would mean either 1 or 2 below.

The change from muscle to fat is more likely to happen than the change from fat to muscle. (This implies that fat can change into muscle even a little.)
Fat cannot change into muscle, and muscle cannot change into fat either

Is either one of these correct? If so, which one? If not, what is the right interpretation?

1 and 2 are wrong. It's simply an idiom meaning "it is ridiculous". It's like saying "pigs may fly." That's all it is. — Fattie, Aug 04 '20 at 13:31
You might want to make it explicit that you are asking about linguistic correctness (I assume you are?) and not biological correctness. — jamesqf, Aug 05 '20 at 00:21
@jamesqf: My question is purely about English language, not about biological stuff. Problems for me is lack of general knowledge in addition to English language deficiency itself. The first option of my two kinds of interpretations might have been excluded if I had had good knowledge about the fat-to-muscle or muscle-to-fat conversion things. I must confess that the idea "muscle can change into fat" was not definitely impossible thing as far as I'm concerned, and the lack of such knowledge made my understanding of the sentence even poor. — Takashi, Aug 05 '20 at 06:40

PLL · Accepted Answer · 2020-08-04T16:01:49.980

37

It means something close to your option (2): Fat can’t change into muscle, just like (as you may already know) muscle can’t change into fat. Regardless of its scientific correctness, this is the meaning that the phrasing implies.

Generally, phrases like “Eagles cannot swim any more than sharks can fly” are an idiomatic construction. They essentially always mean Eagles can’t swim, just like (as you may already know) sharks can’t fly — or in more detail:

it’s impossible, or very unlikely, for sharks to fly (and this is usually assumed as likely background knowledge for the writer and reader);
and it is similarly unlikely for eagles to swim (and this is the main new information the writer is giving the reader).

This phrasing is always used to express impossibility/unlikeliness like this — it does not just mean “ability of eagles to swim ≤ ability of sharks to fly”, as a literal logical reading would entail. For instance, one would never naturally say or write the following, even though strictly logically they’re true:

*Eagles cannot swim any more than dogs can walk.
*Eagles cannot fly any more than dogs can walk.

And slightly more subtly, the first impossibility is the main new information being asserted, while the second one is typically presumed as background knowledge; so one would not say

*Pigs cannot fly any more than elephants can jump.

because although both of these are impossible, readers can be assumed to know the first impossibility more than the second.

edited Aug 04 '20 at 16:01

answered Aug 03 '20 at 17:53

PLL

873
7
13

2

On its own, I would agree with you. In a context, one may decide that the other meaning was correct. Particularly if they then go on to prove how fat can turn into muscle. I would not expect this in a fitness story, but a philosophical discussion might use it! – Cort Ammon Aug 03 '20 at 22:00
2

the first comment here by @eckes is ridiculous / bizarre / utterly incorrect and should be deleted. – Fattie Aug 04 '20 at 13:35
3

@Fattie: I don't understand the chain of reasoning in your first comment. It appears to me that OP's (2) is very nearly right, and PLL has just added a parenthetical to clarify it... – Kevin Aug 04 '20 at 15:55
1

@Fattie I have to agree with PLL & Kevin that OP's (2) is very nearly right. If you disagree you should post an answer explaining why (1) or some unnamed option (3) is correct. The paragraph you reference says "it does not just mean...", indicating (correctly) that the literal interpretation is not sufficient to understand the idiomatic usage. – Tim Sparkles Aug 04 '20 at 17:13
1

@Kevin (PS, Note that PLL has edited, and the answer is now perfect.) the quoted phrase LITERALLY could mean that both processes are 0, 5 or 10 on a scale of 0 to 10, but that they are both the same (whether 0 5 or 10). Or: it could LITERALLY mean "2". BUT it does not really mean that. It is a (poorly-used) idiom. Idioms have meaning. What the idiom means is "the notion under discussion is obviously whacky and you were silly for thinking about it". – Fattie Aug 04 '20 at 17:20
4

It's worth noting it's a poorly-used, confusing idiom. What the writer "meant" to write was, say, "Fat cannot change into muscle any more than eyeballs can change into muscle." or some such humorous choice. It's confusing to use the reversal as the second part. The second part has to be super obvious. It is NOT super-obvious that muscle cannot change in to fat. It has to be something RIDICULOUS, for the comparison in the second part. – Fattie Aug 04 '20 at 17:29
2

@Fattie it really depends on the context. Maybe it's common knowledge in the fitness community that muscles cannot turn into fat, but the jury had, up to this point, still been out on the converse. (I wouldn't know.) – user168715 Aug 05 '20 at 02:03
Poor choice of example, given https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2724064/ – WW. Aug 05 '20 at 03:54
Wow you really deleted a comment, what a welcoming and open community – Aug 05 '20 at 21:33

score 10 · Answer 2 · answered Aug 03 '20 at 07:25

10

There are two possibilities stated here:

(A) An event where fat changes into muscle
(B) An event where muscle changes into fat

The construction here ('not any more than') means the probability of (A) is lower than or equal to (B). That's all you can derive from analyzing the grammar, so both option 1. and 2. could be the truth.

However, assuming that you know from biology class that (B) isn't possible at all, we can conclude that (A) isn't possible either. So in this case, option 2. is intended.

answered Aug 03 '20 at 07:25

Glorfindel

14,824
15
69
76

Thanks Glorfindel. Your explanation is very clear and easy to understand. It has, however, brought me a new question, which is "Does that (your answer) leave open a possibility that the interpretation (option 2) might change in the future if scientific development reveals a new biological fact indicating that muscle can actually change into fat?" – Takashi Aug 03 '20 at 08:07
@Takashi you're welcome. Additional information like that might cause this sentence to become false, or at least not what the speaker/writer intended. – Glorfindel Aug 03 '20 at 08:14
14

We use "no more than" or "any more than" to signify an impossibilty or untruth, by linking it to something else impossible or untrue. I can no more make Jane love me than I can fly to the Moon unaided. Gasoline cannot change into water any more than water can change into gasoline. Thus the proposed interpretation (2) is the correct one. Of course, future scientific advances might make such a transformation possible; I may be able to fly to the moon unaided, but this is expression is usually interpreted as a final statement. – Michael Harvey Aug 03 '20 at 08:38
Thanks Michael for your advice. It's very helpful for me to deepen my understanding regarding sentences with "no more than" or "any more than". I need a lot of practice before I will be able to use the phrases without failure. It's going to be a long journey. – Takashi Aug 03 '20 at 10:31
3

To explain it another way, the two statements don't have any causal relationship. It's just an analogy between two statements. – Barmar Aug 03 '20 at 15:43
6

Also worth mentioning that that particular construct is almost always used to compare with something impossible, or at least highly unlikely. So even if you don't know that muscle can't change into fat, the form of the quote implies that — and therefore claims that fat can't change into muscle either. – gidds Aug 03 '20 at 17:26
7

I'm afraid, Glorfindel, that @MichaelHarvey has it absolutely right. The OP's sentence means, unambiguously, that fat cannot change into muscle and muscle cannot change into fat. It doesn't require any knowledge of molecular biology to deduce this. – TonyK Aug 03 '20 at 19:55

score 7 · Answer 3 · answered Aug 05 '20 at 04:07

“A can’t B any more than C can D” means the same thing as “A can’t B just like C can’t D.”

For either idiom to work, the audience must already know that C can’t D.

With the “any more than” version, there is an added sense that thinking C can D is ridiculous, and therefore it is just as ridiculous to think that A can B, whereas the “just like” version is more factual.

Note that you should check that the things you are comparing with this idiom are both, in fact, impossible. For instance, if you said “birds can’t swim any more than fish can fly,” your statement would be undermined by swimming birds and flying fish. Advanced speakers might do this (or other strange things) ironically to subvert the idiom, but it’s more likely to be an error.

Can fat change into muscle, or not? What does "Fat cannot change into muscle any more than muscle can change into fat." mean?

3 Answers3