“Too many” kinda sounds right to my ear because beans is plural, but the second logically seems right because its served by volume and is not ‘countable’ as ordinary (non-destroyed) beans might be.
When it comes to refried beans, “too many” or “too much” are both incorrect. The correct construction is “may I have some more please?”
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.
You can’t have any pudding until you eat your meat.
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.
One can.
Done.
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”
Lol, I know, right?
On my plate it’s a volumetric thing, so a single unit.
But it is “beans” (plural) in a can.
A technically correct alternative would be to drop that plural “s” but forego any uncountable noun that describes the form the beans take: “I had too much refried bean today.”
In the wrong context it might evoke the idea of one enormous bean that the speaker was unable to finish, but like I say, technically correct.
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!
TI®L. Today I Re-Learned.
Thanks for this. I have basic English knowledge and this helps me
Lol, I like the new acronym
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.
Not after they’ve been refried.
Consider a potato and mashed potatoes.
Yes. There are countable and non-countable nouns and thems the rules.
“Too many” if you’re referring to the beans themselves. “Too much” if you’re referring to refried beans as a dish you have been served.
Edit: just remember: “too many” as reference to a quantity of things, “too much” as reference to a volume or a quantity/amount of a thing. In this case, the “thing” was the dish being served (refried beans). Since it was the dish, itself, being considered (not each individual bean) the phrase was being dealt with, grammatically, as one whole unit— a dish that was served to you, of which you had too much.
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.
you just discovered why we say ‘traffic’ and not ‘there were many trafficks on my way in this morning’.
(It’s also why ‘experiences’ and ‘emails’ is very often wrong if we followed established rules like in the former instead of gleefully making up the very exceptions we then curse, like in the latter case.)
Because refried beans are as you mention no longer countable, I think “refried beans” should be taken all together as a singular compound noun rather than the word “beans” modified by an adjective. So then “too much refried beans” is the correct way to say it because it isn’t plural.
It seems like the problem goes away if you add a “the.” I had too much of the refried beans.
Your point is fair, but I respectfully disagree. “Beans” being plural makes me want to use “many.” “I had too many of the refried beans” parses fine for me.
Counter question:
Would you also use “many” for mashed potatoes, since potatoes is plural?
I don’t think I’ve ever been asked to quantify mashed potatoes in such a way, but after reflecting for a moment, yes. Thank you for an interesting question.
I think you’re just going to have to call it “too much refried bean paste”
I’ve eaten too many corn.
Nah, you’re alright; you just had too much maize.
Corn(s)
No such thing. You can never have enough.
Mmmmmmm… Beans
Same question, but mashed potatoes.
I would think that would be “too much” because all the potatoes don’t matter at that point, it’s one entity. There are no more individual potatoes, we are
Borgmashed potatoes!I would instinctively go for “too much mashed potato” rather than potatoes plural, even if I would describe it as mashed potatoes in other contexts
Obviously this is very context dependant, but here’s my take:
“I ate too many refried beans” = in one meal, I consumed more refried beans than I should have
“I ate too much refried beans” = over the course of an extended period of time, I ate meals consisting of refried beans more frequently than I should have
Shouldn’t it be “too much of”?
Since refried beans is not countable, I vote for “too much”.
Example:
- I’m gassy because I had too much refried beans
- I am gassy because I had too many burritos
Or like someone else suggested, make the noun singular and call them “refried bean paste”. This will probably raise more eyebrows than much/many confusion, though.
“This isn’t what I asked for.”
“But… It’s refried beans.”
“Exactly. Beans. I specifically said one refried bean. This is too many refried beans!”
I think it depends on if you view beans as individual beans or not.
I would say ‘too much’; I never talk about a single refried bean (throwing out the whole thing that refritos aren’t necessarily even fried twice…)
