Timeline for "Too much pills and liquor" or "Too many pills and liquor"?
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
24 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jul 28, 2017 at 23:51 | history | edited | herisson | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
deleted 38 characters in body; edited tags
|
| Mar 14, 2015 at 7:30 | answer | added | Steve Barnes | timeline score: 0 | |
| Mar 5, 2015 at 23:56 | comment | added | user39425 | Too many women with too many pills. | |
| Mar 5, 2015 at 23:05 | history | protected | J.R. | ||
| Mar 5, 2015 at 10:01 | answer | added | M_Griffiths | timeline score: 1 | |
| Mar 5, 2015 at 6:00 | answer | added | John | timeline score: 0 | |
| Mar 5, 2015 at 3:16 | comment | added | BrianH | And if you change the phrase to be "too many women and too many pills", it makes a lovely song. | |
| Mar 5, 2015 at 3:09 | answer | added | Tom Winsemius | timeline score: 2 | |
| Mar 4, 2015 at 19:18 | vote | accept | C_Z_ | ||
| Mar 4, 2015 at 19:14 | answer | added | Othya | timeline score: 51 | |
| Mar 4, 2015 at 18:37 | answer | added | WS2 | timeline score: 17 | |
| Mar 4, 2015 at 18:20 | comment | added | C_Z_ | @Barmar I like this answer best so far, I think it makes sense that when you lump them together they sort of become one big uncountable noun | |
| Mar 4, 2015 at 18:05 | comment | added | Janus Bahs Jacquet | What @Barmar said echoes my feeling of why much works here. Many works just as well for me, but in that case, the pills and the liquor are less tightly knit as a unit: the pills are treated as a countable noun on their own, and the liquor just kind of takes over the semantic role of the quantifier, even though it’s not the right quantifier to use with liquor. The distance between the quantifier and the quantifiee stops it from jarring (much). If we substitute two nouns that don’t ‘fit’ each other, the plural works better (to me): “Too *much/many cars and tomato soup”. | |
| Mar 4, 2015 at 18:05 | answer | added | Wicdz | timeline score: -3 | |
| Mar 4, 2015 at 17:58 | history | tweeted | twitter.com/#!/StackEnglish/status/573180843247706113 | ||
| Mar 4, 2015 at 17:52 | answer | added | user112460 | timeline score: -8 | |
| Mar 4, 2015 at 17:31 | comment | added | David Garner | I agree with @WS2, but in the 'Cabaret' song: The day she died the neighbors came to snicker/"Well, that's what comes from too much pills and liquor" | |
| Mar 4, 2015 at 17:22 | comment | added | Barmar | When you combine them, much seems right. I think pills and liquor is a standin for the whole concept of addictive and harmful substances, which is uncountable. | |
| Mar 4, 2015 at 17:18 | comment | added | Greg Lee | Interesting question. In this particular case, "too much" sounds better to me. | |
| Mar 4, 2015 at 17:15 | comment | added | C_Z_ | @WS2 yes yes, I know that pills are a countable noun and liquor is a non-countable noun. I want to know if there is a proper way to refer to them as a group | |
| Mar 4, 2015 at 17:13 | comment | added | Paul Rowe | @WS2 Make this your answer. | |
| Mar 4, 2015 at 17:09 | comment | added | WS2 | Too many pills, and too much liquor. | |
| Mar 4, 2015 at 17:02 | review | First posts | |||
| Mar 4, 2015 at 17:51 | |||||
| Mar 4, 2015 at 16:59 | history | asked | C_Z_ | CC BY-SA 3.0 |