Ask Lemmy

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

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? 😆

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.

“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.

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.

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

I've eaten too many corn.

Same question, but mashed potatoes.

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.

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

"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!"

No such thing. You can never have enough.

Mmmmmmm.... Beans

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

"Excess beanage."

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...)

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."

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.

"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."

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

Same for scrambled eggs.

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

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

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.