I drank three beers too many.....

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Which of the following sentences is correct?

1) I drank three too many beers last night.

2) I drank three beers too many last night.

Thank you.

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Type: Question • Score: 2 • Views: 865 • Replies: 12

[+3] - Region Philbis - 12/28/2017 no one would say that because drinking 25 beers above what they are accustomed to would surely do them in... :drunk:

@paok1970,

paok1970 wrote:

Which of the following sentences is correct?

1) I drank three too many beers last night.

2) I drank three beers too many last night.

Thank you.

Both. The main point is that you drank too many beers. Where you put the quantifier (three) or the identifier (beers) doesn't change that in this case.

That said, without the "three" you would not normally use the phrasing "beers too many."

For example, if someone asked you to drink all the beer(s) on the table (say there were 30), you might say: "That's too many beers ("to drink" being implied)," but you wouldn't say "That's beers too many." But you might say: "That's 25 beers too many."

1 Reply

@layman,

Is it equally correct to say, "That's 25 too many beers"?

Thanks again for your kind help.

2 Replies

@paok1970,

no one would say that because drinking 25 beers above what they are accustomed to would surely do them in... Drunk

0 Replies

@paok1970,

paok1970 wrote:

Is it equally correct to say, "That's 25 too many beers"?

Thanks again for your kind help.

Yeah, it's "correct," but unnatural to most native speakers. That phrasing strikes me as pretentious, truth be told.

2 Replies

@layman,

Samuel Johnson, who compiled a dictionary back in 1755, wrote:

“Do not accustom yourself to use big words for little matters.”

Johnson knew virtually every English word there was, but he didn't use them just to "show off."

0 Replies

@layman,

layman wrote:

paok1970 wrote:

Is it equally correct to say, "That's 25 too many beers"?

Yeah, it's "correct," but unnatural to most native speakers. That phrasing strikes me as pretentious, truth be told.

The reason I say that it's 'unnatural" is because you're talking about 25 beers, not 25 "too manys." There is no good reason to separate the number from the subject with interspersions like that.

Mark Twain wrote:

“A verb has a hard enough time of it in this world when it is all together. It's downright inhuman to split it up. But that's what those Germans do. They take part of a verb and put it down here, like a stake, and they take the other part of it and put it a way over yonder like another stake, and between these two limits they just shovel in German.”

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Having "one too many" is a well known idiom.

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@paok1970,

Paok one usu sez 'had drunk.' Dunno why

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@paok1970,

Quote:

Which of the following sentences is correct?

1) I drank three too many beers last night.

2) I drank three beers too many last night.

I may stand corrected but to me 1) is not at all idiomatic.

1 Reply

@camlok,

Quote:

1) is not at all idiomatic.

Cam I'd disagree

1 Reply

@dalehileman,

I just read it again, Dale, and I see a possibility. I was too focused on the second.

1 Reply

@camlok,

Quote:

too focused

Aha

0 Replies

I drank three beers too many.....

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