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Can I use "have many things to do with" to emphasize something has important relationships with others?

For example,

this graph has many things to do with the characteristic of the equation.

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  • I think the question needs a little more context. Who are you writing for? Are you writing an academic paper? Is this an informal piece of writing? Is it about mathematics, or is the sentence only an example?
    – Mari-Lou A
    Commented Feb 3, 2016 at 8:50
  • @Mari-LouA. I'm writing an academic paper, but the example above is barely an example. Nothing to do with my paper.
    – JaeJun LEE
    Commented Feb 3, 2016 at 9:00
  • If you presented a concrete example, in context, answerers might be able to suggest something useful and (perhaps) more suitable than the wording you give here. But I don't think that such a question would be on topic at this site because it amounts to proofreading/writing advice, rather than a discussion of grammar or idiomatic English. Certainly the wording "X has many things to do with Y" is not erroneous or un-English in itself.
    – Sven Yargs
    Commented Feb 3, 2016 at 19:46
  • @SvenYargs Good point. I'm just asking that expression is correct grammatically. BTW, the reason why I'm asking here is because I couldn't find real usage of "many things" in that way. But now I found another expression "have a lot to do with" and this looks correct and to be used.
    – JaeJun LEE
    Commented Feb 4, 2016 at 4:44

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I think "this graph has much to do with the characteristic of the equation" sounds better.

Or, as Google's phrase search has shown "this graph has a lot to do with the characteristic of the equation" is even more commonly used.

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  • Hello, radoh. Can you think of a way to lift the alternative wording you suggest to higher ground as an answer than simply noting that it is your personal preference? I don't mean to say that your preference is invalid; but without some backup from a reliable reference authority, it is just one person's opinion. This site puts a premium on answers that document their conclusions or substantiate them by reasoned argument, on the theory that such support provides questioners with a better idea of why the proposed answer is reliable and useful.
    – Sven Yargs
    Commented Feb 3, 2016 at 19:54
  • Sure, when you search "has much to do with" in google, it returns "About 469,000 results". When you search "has many things to do with", it returns "About 339,000 results". So it seems it is slightly more common.
    – radoh
    Commented Feb 4, 2016 at 7:14
  • I'm skeptical that raw Google search results are especially useful as a way to determine the preferability of one wording over another in a particular context. For example, in advanced Google searches, I get the following numbers of results for the following exact phrases: "has lots to do with," 80,000; "has many things to do with," 337,000; "has much to do with," 479,000; "has a lot to do with," 33,700,000. But I'm not inclined to conclude from those numbers that "has a lot to do with" is clearly the best wording of the four to use in the OP's context.
    – Sven Yargs
    Commented Feb 4, 2016 at 7:26
  • On the contrary, I think it's perfect for finding out which phrase/word is common. Or you could use Google Ngram viewer - books.google.com/ngrams/… Anyway, I agree the phrase you suggested is even better. I'll edit my answer.
    – radoh
    Commented Feb 4, 2016 at 11:05

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