Many and Much

[Agnes]

Took another quiz. Sentence read. 'How...police were at the scene?' I inserted 'much' and got it wrong. Should it then be 'many'? Just sounds odd to say 'many police' unless perhaps there was 'officers' added, Making it 'How many police officers were at the scene?' Can one then use 'was' in place of 'were' and make it read as follows, ' How 'much' police 'was' (instead of 'were') at the scene?' Would this be correct?

[BobK]

Originally Posted by Agnes

Took another quiz. Sentence read. 'How...police were at the scene?' I inserted 'much' and got it wrong. Should it then be 'many'? Just sounds odd to say 'many police' unless perhaps there was 'officers' added, Making it 'How many police officers were at the scene?' Can one then use 'was' in place of 'were' and make it read as follows, ' How 'much' police 'was' (instead of 'were') at the scene?' Would this be correct?

No. You could say 'How much of a police presence was there?', but 'police' as a noun, on its own, is countable; it means 'police officers' - except in a few cases where it means 'police authority/-ties'.

There were 240 police at the demonstration.

But

The police have banned the sale of replica firearms.

b

[Agnes]

Thanks for that explanation, makes sense now.

[Harry Smith]

Originally Posted by Agnes

Took another quiz. Sentence read. 'How...police were at the scene?' I inserted 'much' and got it wrong. Should it then be 'many'? Just sounds odd to say 'many police' unless perhaps there was 'officers' added, Making it 'How many police officers were at the scene?' Can one then use 'was' in place of 'were' and make it read as follows, ' How 'much' police 'was' (instead of 'were') at the scene?' Would this be correct?

I think it's better to write "police officers" in such cases.

[Teia]

Originally Posted by Harry Smith

I think it's better to write "police officers" in such cases.

Right. Or "policemen"

[curmudgeon]

Originally Posted by teia_petrescu

Right. Or "policemen"

I have other words for them

[Teia]

Originally Posted by curmudgeon

I have other words for them

Hi


Why don`t you share them to us ?

Cops and ..?

[curmudgeon]

None of them are very complimentary

List of slang terms for police officers - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[riverkid]

Here are a bunch, Teia, and I haven't heard/hadn't heard a lot of them.

List of slang terms for police officers - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Often we get questions from students about what structure can/must be used in certain circumstances. Sometimes, situations arise where two or more can be used. It all depends on the focus of the speaker. Here is one such scenario. Students should be aware that the context, the focus is crucial to deciding what structure is used /can be used.

I haven't heard = a focus on recently viewing the list and expressing that "up to now", the time of writing this, I haven't heard some of them.

I hadn't heard = a focus on the past action of viewing the list and having closed that window, I'm writing this thinking, "until I looked at that list".

[Agnes]

Now I am also getting curious, wonder what those 'other names' could be!!!