this post was submitted on 27 Aug 2023
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English usage and grammar

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I did a quick search on google and, not only I see both versions, I even see both of them in the same document.

Example: Region-Enhancing Network for Semantic Segmentation of Remote-Sensing Imagery - PMC

the dataset with much more images
the dataset with many more images

Specific searches show these numbers:

Is there any difference between them?
Thanks!

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Non native speaker here.

"Much" refers to something not countable, like "much more milk", and is used without plural, "liter" is countable such that you could say "many more liters of milk" (note the plural of liter). So while I'd say the latter is more correct according to grammatical rules, if both are common, both can be considered correct, as rules are often rewritten to adapt to the way the English language is used.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 year ago (1 children)

FWIW, as a native speaker, "much more images" is incorrect enough that seeing it would tell me that the author's first language isn't English.

Having complex and arbitrary grammatical rules solely to telegraph education sucks though, so vive la revolution.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Thanks for the confirmation!

Do you know what could be the explanation for google showing more results with "many more images"?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Root cause? The complexity of English makes it an absurd choice for a worldwide standard.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Hehe, fair enough :)

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Every language is complex, wtf are you smoking? If anything I'd say English is the best choice for a global standard because of how adaptible it is and the fact that it's already the global common language for a bunch of industries. Reversing that will be challenging if not impossible

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

That was my reasoning, which is correct in my native language (Spanish: "muchas más imágenes). That's why seeing more results for "much more images" suprised me.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Native speaker here. I agree with the others that "many" is correct.

Also, I only get 43 results for your first search, and 3,100,000 for the second.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Thanks!

I only get 43 results for your first search,

My bad, I didn't mean there were a lot of results using both in the same document. I also get very few results for hat search.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

No, I mean I got 43 results on a Google search for the first quoted phrase, and 3.1M for the second quoted phrase. That's two separate G searches. I was not looking for documents with both phrases.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Definitively Google numbers are nonsense, now I see 1.1M

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

Definitely bs. I got 1.1 on first visit too. Then I refreshed the page and it was 42.