“too few things”, better than “too few things”

by time news

2023-09-26 10:40:16

When too much is followed by little, few o few to express that something is too scarce, it is recommended to leave it invariable: too few things rather too few things.

As academic grammar explains, the voice too much affects the adjective here bitso it works as an adverb and, therefore, it is invariable. It can be verified that it has this function by substituting too much by verya voice of close meaning that is also an adverb, as in very few things.

In the media it is not uncommon to find plural and feminine variants: “There are too few diagnosed cases”, “We have reached a time of too little investment” or “There are regrets that there are too many questions and too few answers.” Based on what was stated above, “too few cases”, “too little investment” and “too few responses” would have been better, respectively.

The same criterion applies to turns too bad y too good when it is specified that something is especially good or bad, although in these cases the context must be taken into account. In “there are too many bad novels” it is expressed that there are more bad novels than there should be, which is equivalent to “there are too many bad novels”, while in “there are too many bad novels”, as a less common variant of “there are novels”. too bad”, it is expressed that there are novels that are excessively bad.

You may also like

Leave a Comment