much work or many works?

English as a Second Language English Vocabulary, Grammar and Idioms
1

As far as I know, work is an uncountable noun and mostly used as a singular without an “s”. Anyway I have seen some circumstances where work can be used as a plural, such as, art works, public works, iron works, which work has a different meaning than
its original one. I just came across a sentence “I did so many charity works.” and I am not sure if work in this circumstance is qualified as a plural or not.
I think “I did so many charity works” can either mean “I did so many types of charity work” or “I did so much charity related work”.
Please correct me if I am right or wrong.

Any explanation would be very appreciated.

Thanks,
Paul

2

My first thought was that the speaker was mangling two different expressions:
[color=indigo]I did so much charity work…
and
[color=indigo]I was involved with so many charities…

Look carefully at what this non-native speaker is saying:
[color=indigo]I did so many charity works. I met people from all walks of life and I get to do some works in the entertainment, too, No native speaker would say that!
and
[color=indigo]It’s like you graduated of becoming a complete woman.
“graduated of”?
and
[color=indigo]But I like studying about it. You either ‘like studying it’ or ‘like reading about it’. She mangles the two together.

3

Bazza/Dozy,

  1. We will study about the report carefully before making a decision.
    1a. We will study the report carefully before making a decision.
  2. We will read about the report carefully before making a decision.
    2a. We will read the report carefully before making a decision.

Are all correct?
If there is error, please explain the nuance of the grammar involved.

4

As Bazza said, I don’t think “study about” is ever correct. Here, #1 is definitely not correct but 1a is fine.

#2 means reading about the report, not reading the report itself. I am not sure what “reading about a report” would be, maybe you read that a report was completed or that a report was released. In either case, I doubt this would help you make a decision, so I don’t think #2 would ever be correct.

2a is fine though.

5

All of them come from an interview with a former Miss Thailand Universe, that, regrettably, is used as a serious teaching aid to learn vocabulary such as ‘boarding school’…but not making any comment about the poor syntax.

6

Wow!!! Thank you so much for your thorough answers Bazza, and I really appreciated that. You did the research on this sentence very well. Anyway, I was quite surprised by how you found out where the source of this sentence came from.
I tried googling " I did so many charity works" but I could not find any link leading me to the source. Would you mind sharing with me?

Thanks again,
Paul

7

Must agree with Paul. Good job Bazza!