“Too many” kinda sounds right to my ear because beans is plural, but the second logically seems right because its served by volume and is not ‘countable’ as ordinary (non-destroyed) beans might be.
“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.
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.
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.)
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.
I think you’re just going to have to call it “too much refried bean paste”
It seems like the problem goes away if you add a “the.” I had too much of the refried beans.
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.
Counter question:
Would you also use “many” for mashed potatoes, since potatoes is plural?
I don’t think I’ve ever been asked to quantify mashed potatoes in such a way, but after reflecting for a moment, yes. Thank you for an interesting question.
I’ve eaten too many corn.
Nah, you’re alright; you just had too much maize.
“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!”
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.
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…)
No such thing. You can never have enough.
Mmmmmmm… Beans
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
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.”
I think it depends on if you view beans as individual beans or not.
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.”
deleted by creator
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.
