Is anyone else driven mad by the Tide advertisement, which declares their detergent has "much more cleaning ingredients"? Shouldn't that be "many more cleaning ingredients"? Why does it sound off to me? I'm thinking that "much" would define a singular thing, whereas "many" would define multiple. Am I right, or totally out to lunch?
Much vs. Many
- Thread starter Sandi LeFaucheur
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You are correct. Much deals with uncountable nouns. For instance, "there isn't much salt in the shaker." Many deals with plural nouns. So, there should be "many more cleaning ingredients."
Write the people at Tide many angry letters stating how much you hate their new ad campaign.
Write the people at Tide many angry letters stating how much you hate their new ad campaign.
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Unless, of course, they are refering to the amount of cleaning ingredients in each box/bottle instead of the number of cleaning ingredients.
"Hey! My product has twice as much dihydrogen monoxide than your product!"
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I think that probably is what they mean. The correct way to say that would be 'much more of each cleaning ingredient' which isn't quite so snappy.
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