Englishonthe.net

Here’s a quick grammar tip that may help improve your English today.

A quantifier is a word that talks about the number, quantity or amount of something.  Examples of English quantifiers include words like each, both, either, neither, few, some, any, much, many, a lot of etc.

The last three, much, many, a lot of/lots of cause some problems.  Sometimes I hear sentences like the following:

How much money have you got?  It’s okay, I’ve got *much.

Did you have any trouble with customs?  Rather *much.

There isn’t much food left is there?  There’s *much bread and soup.

He’s got a lot of friends, but he doesn’t know *lots of girls.

We’ve played a lot of matches this season, but we haven’t won *lots.

None of the above sentences are correct.  As a general rule we use LOTS/A LOT OF in affirmative phrases, and MUCH (for uncountable nouns like “money”) and MANY (for countable nouns like “girls”) in negative phrases and questions.

Can you correct the above sentences?

In formal writing the rules are a little bit different.  We don’t like using LOTS OF in formal writing.  A LOT OF is possible, but we prefer to use expressions like the following:

Mr Lucas has spent a great deal of time in the Far East.

The auditors have found a large number of mistakes in the accounts.

In very formal style, you will find phrases that look like mistakes when you take into account the rules about much/many above:

Much research has been carried out in order to establish the causes of cancer.  In the opinion of many scientists…

In formal style it is quite acceptable to use much/many in affirmative phrases, not only in negatives and questions.

For more information on quantifiers see the next post on few and little.

For more details I recommend the following resources:

• Practical English Usage
• How English Works: A Grammar Practice Book
• English Grammar In Use with Answers and CD ROM: A Self-study Reference and Practice Book for Intermediate Students of English