Should one say "too many refried beans", or "too much refried beans"?

When it comes to refried beans, “too many” or “too much” are both incorrect. The correct construction is “may I have some more please?”

77

Please sir, may I have some more 🥺?

13
- 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.
  
  13
- You can't have any pudding until you eat your meat.
  
  3

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? 😆

32

Try to count a can of refried beans and get back to me with a result.

20
- One can.
  
  Done.
  
  17
- 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"
  
  9
- Lol, I know, right?
  
  On my plate it's a volumetric thing, so a single unit.
  
  But it is "beans" (plural) in a can.
  
  2
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.

6
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.

4
- Well clarified!
  
  1
TI(R)L. Today I Re-Learned.

Thanks for this. I have basic English knowledge and this helps me

3
- Lol, I like the new acronym
  
  1
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.

2
- 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.
  
  2
Yes. There are countable and non-countable nouns and thems the rules.

1

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.

18

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.)

1

“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.

18

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.

16

It seems like the problem goes away if you add a "the." I had too much of the refried beans.

11

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.

3
- Counter question:
  
  Would you also use "many" for mashed potatoes, since potatoes is plural?
  
  1

I think you’re just going to have to call it “too much refried bean paste”

9

I've eaten too many corn.

7

Corn(s)

2
Nah, you're alright; you just had too much maize.

2

"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!"

5

No such thing. You can never have enough.

Mmmmmmm.... Beans

5

Same question, but mashed potatoes.

5

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 ~~Borg~~ mashed potatoes!

7
- 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
  
  2

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

5

Shouldn't it be "too much of"?

3

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.

5

"Excess beanage."

4

NGL... I kinda want to tell someone to reduce their beanage without any context, and walk away.

3

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...)

4

I think it depends on if you view beans as individual beans or not.

4

"Too many refried beans"
"Too much refried bean"

Same for scrambled eggs.

"Too many scrambled eggs"
"Too much scrambled egg"

3

Depends whether you consider the noun countable or not. Too many peas, too much mashed potato. It's purely semantics, I think we can consider refried beans an edge case.

3

You would use too much, since refried beans is an uncountable noun. You have to add a unit to it to make it countable.

You would say "there's too much refried beans on my plate, and too many cans of refried beans in the pantry."

By adding "cans" to the noun phrase, you've made the refried beans countable, you may now use "too many."

3

Beans are definitely countable. Wouldn't be fun but I could do it.

Edit: Then again rice technically is as well but we definitely treat it like it's not.

2
- Beans are countable. We're talking about refried beans though. It's a paste. You cant count paste.
  
  It's like saying "oil."
  
  You have to give a unit.
  
  4
What? That is not at all how that works. Beans is the plural of bean, therefore, many is the only correct option.

-1
- Talking "refried beans" as a noun phrase, not beans.
  
  Refried beans does not have a plural noun form. You have to give it a unit. "twenty plates of refried beans," "pounds of refried beans," etc.
  
  It like oil. You don't say "top up my car with oils." If you add more than you're supposed to, you put in too much, not too many.
  
  4

"Scrambled eggs" is kind of similar. You could say, "I had too many scrambled eggs" or, "I had too much scrambled egg."

So I think the correct version is:

"I had too much refried bean."

3

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.

2

I believe the customary phrase is "pull my finger."

2

This changes a lot if you switch "some more* with "another."

1

You would say "too much mash potato" rather than "too many mash potatoes", and the consistency is similar

Difference is with "refried beans" the countable noun is plural ("refried beanS" vs "mash potato").

Saying "too much refried bean" sounds a bit more natural.

1

This is literally the first time I've ever heard mashed potato be singular. My phone even tried to make it plural.

3
- Probably one of those regional variations that would look interesting overlaid on a map..
  
  1
I would have said "mashed potato" for your first example.

2

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]

-1

Too much Womble.

1
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.

0
- The thing is that language constantly changes and it often does so towards whatever the habitual usage of it is, "rules" be damned. We're not bothering with a thou/you distinction in English any more, for example. If people abandon the countable/uncountable distinction then it's no longer incorrect, for whatever version of "incorrect" is being applied here.
  
  1
- 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".
  
  0

Do you own too much pairs of jeans or too many pairs of jeans?

-2

Well, if they are neatly hung and countable, I have too many. If they are in a wash basin dissolved in acid (akin to refried beans), then maybe I have too much?

3
- Too much what? The point I was making was a singular plural unit, just like an amount of (singular) refried (plural) beans.
  
  Too many refried beans.
  
  1
But you can count how many pairs of jeans someone has.

1