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Reader question: Please explain this sentence; particularly “hold a candle”: The Tundra is the only other half-ton truck that feels almost on par with this engine when it comes to hauling, but the Toyota doesn’t hold a candle to this truck when fuel usage is taken into account. My comments: This means that “this truck”, whatever it is, is a superior half-ton truck to the Toyota Tundra. The Tundra can almost match this unspecified in terms of hauling, but can’t compare to “this truck” in fuel efficiency. In fact, it doesn’t hold a candle, meaning it’s by far inferior. The proper idiom is “cannot hold a handle to someone”, meaning the latter is the much better one at a particular job or task. “Hold a candle”, you see, probably refers to the age-old practice of an apprentice holding a candle to give light so that the master could get some work done during the night. The apprentice cannot match the master in terms of skills and technique and so it is always the apprentice or someone less skillful who holds the candle. Now, by the analogy, if you cannot even hold a candle to someone, you cannot compare with them at all. In explaining the idiom, Phrase.uk.org gave an example, in William Norris’s No New Thing (1883), as follows: “Edith is pretty, very pretty; but she can’t hold a candle to Nellie.” So, Edith or Nellie, who is the prettier one? | 
