The phrase "are plainly less" is correct and usable in written English.
It can be used to compare two or more things, indicating that one is clearly inferior or of lower quality than the other.
Example: "The results of the experiment are plainly less reliable than those obtained from previous studies."
Alternatives: "are clearly inferior" or "are obviously lower".
Using ration-cards as registration cards would be plainly less than perfect, though they may have been used in local elections.
In other words, Mr Kerry's position is not bad, but it is plainly less good than it was.In this section In search of a message The problem with Kerrynomics On the trail A matter of evidence Whose Bill of Rights, anyway?
If the talks last long enough, a further 78 Palestinians are due to be freed in batches in the coming months.Mr Abbas's Palestinian critics say his non-violent policy is plainly less effective than that of Hamas, the Islamist faction that runs the Gaza Strip.
He's plainly less interested in serving up period details or providing a portrait of peasant life than he is in exploring his characters' minds; he doesn't want to transport us to 18th-century Denmark so much as he wants to help us see these figures from history as our contemporaries.
These enterprises are, plainly, major sources of tax revenue; less visibly, some officials have an economic stake in them.
By then communism, for all its tanks and missiles, was plainly a less efficient economic machine.
Throwing off the covers On the rise The noose tightens ReprintsIn Tehran, the capital, long known for its underground sex scene, chastity is plainly becoming less common.
On national security, meanwhile, the Democratic Party is plainly much less libertarian — and the Republican Party, mostly thanks to Rand Paul, slightly more so — than it was when Lindsey was drawing up his form of fusionism.
Some may still be trendy, especially if they are of persons that are less well-known, but many are plainly considered trite by Israelis.
Most are less than 1 metre (about 3 feet) in length and are plainly coloured.
