Bill Gates and Michael Bloomberg recently announced plans to throw some of their wealth into tobacco control.

At the press conference, Gates described a drop in the prevalence of smokers in the U.S. “That’s taken a long time to achieve that, but that’s something that’s very, very worthwhile, and that’s the kind of thing that we’d like to see happen in these other countries.”

Two quibbles here. First, that heap of adverbs piled in front of worthwhile. “Very” seldom adds meaning. Rather, it adds flab to a muscular sentence. It’s particularly irksome when it modifies an adjective that does not exist in degrees. A cause is either worthwhile — that is, worth the effort — or not. Yes, it deserves the money. No, it does not. The same goes for unique, which means “being the only one,” “being without a like or equal.” You are either unique or you’re not. You have equals or you don’t. Of course, there are more embarrassing linguistic errors, but this distinction is not lost on the nuanced speaker. Here, it suggests that Gates either considers tobacco control an unusually high priority (very, very!) or that he feels the need to forcefully justify such a large donation.

Second, Gates says a drop in tobacco use is the “kind of thing” he’d like to see happen in other countries. He’s framing it too widely. His $125 million donation is not going toward a campaign for better health, in general, but toward a reduction in tobacco use, in particular. A drop in the prevalence in smoking is the exact thing he hopes will happen in other countries. So go ahead and say it, Bill: Put your mouth where your money is.