much + adj?

Hi,

I just browsed a topic in this forum and saw someone use ‘much’ in following ways:

  1. Many persons have no adequate qualities but are very much popular
  2. was very much learned, …
  3. Is this not so much interesting matter?

Isn’t ‘much’ in above sentences redundant?

Thank you.

Justin

hi Justin

"very much " is not always incorrect. For example, in the right context, we can say “This case is very much different”, or even “This door is very much red”. It is quite hard to be certain whether examples #1 and #2 were knowingly intended exactly as written, or are just mistakes for the more usual “very popular” and “very learned”. With the greatest respect to the writer, I think the latter explanation is more likely.

#3 is not correct (in any relevant sense), and was probably meant as “Is this not a very interesting matter?” or similar.

Dozy,

  1. “Is this not so much interesting matter?”
  2. “It is not so much interesting matter.”
    According to you, #1 is wrong. Could you please explain with ts grammar.
    What about # 2 sentence?
    If #2 is also wrong, please give the correct grammar points.
    Thanks.

“so much” forces “matter” to be uncountable, in which case it could mean “physical substance”, or could potentially have any of a number of more specialised meanings, such as “reading material”. It is theoretically possible for sentence #1 to be correct in one of these senses, but it seems strained and unlikely. Sentence #2 is even more of a strain in any context that I can think of. The original author probably meant to use “matter” in a countable sense, as in “a very interesting matter”. This is much more likely than “very interesting matter” (uncountable).

*After writing this I have noticed that the original sentence was actually “Is this not a so much interesting matter?”, so it was misquoted at the start of this thread. The actual sentence, with “a”, is ungrammatical, but suggests that my observation in the previous paragraph is probably correct.

Dozy,
Can I say as below:

  1. It’s so much interesting news.
  2. It is more interesting matter/story.

Oops! I accidientally missed the ‘a’ out in sentence #3.

But I think the author was trying to use ‘much’ as an adverb to modify the adjective ‘interesting’ rather than use it as an adjective to modify ‘interesting matter’.
Anyway, I shall avoid using such wordy sentence.

Justin

Hi Allifathima,

Are you trying to say…
A) The news is so interesting. or
B) So much news is interesting.

What about “It is a more interesting matter/story”?

Justin

My guess is that he fundamentally meant “an interesting matter”, and incorrectly inserted “so much”, rather than “very”, as an adverbial intensifier.

The sentence is not really too wordy; it’s just that the parts do not go together properly.

#1 is referring to a large amount of interesting news, not to news that is especially interesting. As Justin suggested, you may mean something like “The news is so interesting”, or simply “It’s very interesting news”.

In #2, you presumably mean “It is a more interesting matter/story”, again as Justin suggested.