What context do you think would the phrase “they’ve done so many good works over the years” as opposed to “they’ve done so much good work over the years” fit in?
I’ve heard it in this documentary at 4:50 and thought “they’ve done so much good work over the years” would be a better fit.
“Good works” originated as a religious term which people seem to use more generally. It refers to good deeds or good actions. The speaker seems to be focusing on some number of projects that were “good”, as opposed to generally doing a good job.
Wikipedia has a long article on the religious context.
Thanks a lot for pointing this out. So, in a way the term ‘good works’ is similar to ‘good deeds’, right?
Yes, perhaps a little more idealistic.
But come to think of it, I’m not sure I’ve heard of it in a non-religious sense. It could be that the speaker himself made the jump from religious to environmental context.
I would use “so much good work” in the majority of cases.
I think the only time I would use “so many good works” is if I listed multiple good works they have done.
It’s countable vs non-countable. If you are going to use the countable “so many good works”, then supply examples that can be counted.
I only watched less than a minute of the video, but it appears that he did list multiple examples, just prior to the phrase “so many good works”. So in this case, I think it’s correct.