Very many

Practical English Usage by Michael Swan (Oxford University Press) says....." many... can be modified by... very. Very many is used mostly in questions and negatives."

I would add that it is also used in answers, and for emphasis.

"Have you had many boyfriends?" "Well, not very many!"

So, whilst 'very many' is grammatically possible, and it is used, as any word search will show, it would also seem that native British English speakers do not use that particular word combination frequently in everyday speech. We more often simply say "many".



Forum: General English grammar questions (EFL / ESL)
Posted: Nov 15, 10:13 PM [GMT 1]
Post Subject: [url="/English/Post/bpgrp/Post.htm#158965"]Re: very many[/url]
Post author: [url="/user/ddnh/profile.htm"]Paco2004[/url]

---

I've pondered about this issue since yesterday. It may be true "very many" is often used in negative contexts. But it is used also in non-negative contexts. OED gives no explanation to it but it contains 169 quotes using this phrase. (EX) I met very many priests who quite accepts the Protestant Alliance version of Jesuitism. (McCabe, J., "Twelve Years in Monastery", 1897). The dictionary contains also 14 quotes using "very many of". (EX) Very many of the native mono-syllables are determinatives. (Marsh, "The English Language", 1862). Though the quotes in OED are rather old, Goolge-wise speaking, "very many" is used a lot in pages of New-York Times and CNN.

paco