When it comes to refried beans, “too many” or “too much” are both incorrect. The correct construction is “may I have some more please?”
this post was submitted on 29 Aug 2024
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Please sir, may I have some more 🥺?
Señor*
Also, I'd love to see a version of Oliver Twist where the orphanage exclusively serves tex-mex for some reason.
19th century london orphan taste buds who are used to the blandest of the blandest slop only get to eat really spicy food at the orphanage for the added cruelty.
HOW CAN YOU HAVE ANY FLAN IF YOU DON'T EAT YOUR BEANS!?!
A twist on Oliver Twist with Churro twists.
It depends on whether you're referring to individual refried beans or the dish 'refried beans' as a whole.
If it's the former, it would be 'too many' (individual) refried beans.
If it is the latter, it would be 'too much' (of) refried beans... Unless you had multiple servings, in which case it would be 'too many' (servings of) refried beans.
That is my opinion: as such it is subject to change should further information come to light.
Regardless of whether the noun is countable or not, it would typically still be "too much" when referring to how much you've eaten.
Consider the scenario where you've had only one steak (countable noun), but you had too much steak.
Of course, it's not always like this. You might say that you had too many cookies for dessert.
I think it depends on if you view beans as individual beans or not.
Whichever sounds more natural to you, because the whole countable/non-countable less/fewer is crap made up by Edwardian snobs and then repeated by school teacher gammarians too into being "proper". To quote wiki
The comparative less is used with both countable and uncountable nouns in some informal discourse environments and in most dialects of English.[citation needed] In other informal discourse however, the use of fewer could be considered natural. Many supermarket checkout line signs, for instance, will read "10 items or less"; others, however, will use fewer in an attempt to conform to prescriptive grammar. Descriptive grammarians consider this to be a case of hypercorrection as explained in Pocket Fowler's Modern English Usage.[7][8] A British supermarket chain replaced its "10 items or less" notices at checkouts with "up to 10 items" to avoid the issue.[9][10] It has also been noted that it is less common to favour "At fewest ten items" over "At least ten items" – a potential inconsistency in the "rule",[11] and a study of online usage seems to suggest that the distinction may, in fact, be semantic rather than grammatical.[8] Likewise, it would be very unusual to hear the unidiomatic "I have seen that film at fewest ten times."[12][failed verification]
The Cambridge Guide to English Usage notes that the "pressure to substitute fewer for less seems to have developed out of all proportion to the ambiguity it may provide in noun phrases like less promising results". It describes conformance with this pressure as a shibboleth and the choice "between the more formal fewer and the more spontaneous less" as a stylistic choice.[13]
Well no one way is correct and one way is not, regardless of what this particularly shitty Wikipedia article says.
The comparative less is used with both countable and uncountable nouns in some informal discourse environments and in most dialects of English.[citation needed] In other informal discourse however, the use of fewer could be considered natural.
"in some informal discourse environments?" Does that mean environments in which writing goes unedited and mistakes don't matter?
Just because some people somewhere do a thing doesn't mean it's right. To people with formal writing experience, or people that are just well read, the agreement errors are obvious and revealing.
This is a question of diction not style. Check the dictionary. Less and fewer have different meanings. One of them affirmatively describes something uncountable.
This distinction was first tentatively suggested by the grammarian Robert Baker in 1770,[3][1] and it was eventually presented as a rule by many grammarians since then.[a] However, modern linguistics has shown that idiomatic past and current usage consists of the word less with both countable nouns and uncountable nouns so that the traditional rule for the use of the word fewer stands, but not the traditional rule for the use of the word less.[3] As Merriam-Webster's Dictionary of English Usage explains, "Less refers to quantity or amount among things that are measured and to number among things that are counted.”
"Correct" was a suggestion by someone which got over zealously picked up by grammarians despite in flying in the face of common usage. There is no acedemy of English to dictate that this rule change is the one true way of speaking and even if there was it would have about as much effect as the French one trying to suppress "le weekend".
Like I'm a little confused. The correctness of it is dictated by the definition.
No, correctness is defined by usage. There is no high authority that lays down rules and you are wrong if you break them. 100 years ago you would have been considered incorrect if you asked "who am I speaking to?" rather than "To whom am I speaking?". There wasnt a committee meeting some time in the 50s where it was decided to change the rules and depreciate cases in who/whom it just happened naturally and what is "correct" evolved.
Dictionaries themselves say that that they document how language is used rather than setting rules to follow, hence they now inculde a definition of literally as "not actually true but for emphasis".
I am the higher authority.
This is a question of noun phrase agreement and diction. If you use the wrong word you create a disagreement error. Period. Maybe whatever poser dictionary you use has a new form of less or fewer but mine doesn't.
No sweety, you are not...
Since the word "beans" is plural, and countable, it's "many".
"Many" is for things that are countable, "much" is for things that aren't. e.g. Water - you'd say "too much water" but you wouldn't say "too much cups of water" but "too many cups of water".
Though "refried beans" is a thing on its own, I could go either way. Like if you were spooning beans onto my plate, I may say "too much!".
How's that for a confident, clear answer? 😆
Try to count a can of refried beans and get back to me with a result.
Lol, I know, right?
On my plate it's a volumetric thing, so a single unit.
But it is "beans" (plural) in a can.
The plural on the word takes precedence over the actual countability of the thing. Unless you want to start calling it a can of "refried bean"
One can.
Done.
TI(R)L. Today I Re-Learned.
Thanks for this. I have basic English knowledge and this helps me
Lol, I like the new acronym
So you'd normally say "that's too much!" in which case the subject "that" is plural and countable so therefore "much" would be correct.
Otherwise you should say "you have given me too many refried beans!" since the beans are volumetric and not countable entities.
Well clarified!
I wouldn’t consider beans countable, and would put it in the same category as rice or noodles. So I’d say “too much” is the correct term.
One noodle/ a bowl of noodles. Or one bean, a bowl of beans.
But you wouldn't say: one rice. You'd say one grain of rice. So it's like rice is automatically a mass of many individual bits/grains of rice. Beans are not that way, they're countable.
I believe the customary phrase is "pull my finger."