Korean Job Discussion Forums

[raewon]

Happy New Year everyone.

I need to know if the following structures are grammatically correct or not:

1. He ate cake as much as possible.
2. He ate cake as much as he could.

I'd say "He ate cake as often as possible." and
"He ate cake as often as he could."
I'd also say, "He ate as much cake as possible." and "He ate as much cake as he could."

Michael Swan says "As much/many can be used without a following noun."
He gives the following examples:
"I ate as much as I wanted." and "Rest as much as possible." Of course both of these sound natural to me, but they don't really support my original sentences above.

What do you think?

Thanks.

[frankly speaking]

placing the object "cake" would make more sense after as much.

He ate as much cake as possible.
He ate as much cake as he could.
He worked as many hours as he could.

[raewon]

Thanks for your reply. I totally agree. But I need to know whether or not

1. He ate cake as much as possible.
2. He ate cake as much as he could.

are wrong or not.

[ontheway]

[The Cosmic Hum]

[Reise-ohne-Ende]

I have a feeling the "He ate cake as much as possible" construction is perfectly acceptable in some descriptive contexts...but only in situations where "as often as possible" sounds too stilted or formal. Prescriptively, and for ESL learners, there's no reason they should be learning that form. Then again, if someone wrote that on a test, I probably wouldn't correct it unless they were at a very very high level of ESL.

[maingman]

http://www.britishcouncil.org/professionals-grammar-movies.htm