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plase consider the following sentence : "So much in our society is about making more and more money."

I have two questions.

The first: Is 'much' considered as pronoun in the context ?

As we know 'much' used for uncountable nouns whereas 'so much' means 'so much people' that 'people' is dropped. Now, Can we use pronoun like this when the noun dropped is uncountable? is it a fixed rule? which 'words' can be used with 'much' to make sense on the sentence?

The second: According to the all dictionaries, we have the pattern of ' be about to do something' . why do in the following we use 'doing' instead of 'do'?

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  • "So much in our society" does not mean "so much people" (or, more correctly, "so many people") here. It means "a great amount about our society".
    – stangdon
    Commented Oct 18, 2016 at 13:29
  • Did you mean 'A great amount about our society is about making more and more money'? A great amount about what?! About our society?
    – Mickey Mouse
    Commented Oct 18, 2016 at 13:34
  • Let me try and put it this way: Many aspects of our society are about making more and more money. Or maybe: A large part of our society is about making more and more money. Or even: There are many things in our society that are about making more and more money. Does that help? I realize that much about is kind of a stock phrase that's difficult to define exactly!
    – stangdon
    Commented Oct 18, 2016 at 13:38
  • Thanks. You made Great examples. Could you please give some examples for much as well?! To fit in my original sentences?And because 'a great amount about our society' cannot be counted we considered it as uncountable noun and use much as pronon.
    – Mickey Mouse
    Commented Oct 18, 2016 at 13:46

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I don't quite understand your first question. "So much people" is not idiomatic - some would say it is not grammatical.

If you think that "so much" in your example means "so many people", you are misinterpreting. It is vague exactly what it is referring to, but it is definitely not about "people".

So many in our society ...

means "So many people".

So much in our society ...

means something like, "so much effort", or "so much concern", or "so much activity".

For your second question, again you are misinterpreting, because you are confusing two different idioms:

We are about to do something ...

means "We are going to start doing it".

We are about doing something ...

is much less common, and means "Our purpose, our goal, what we identify with, is doing that thing".

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  • Hello Teacher, 'so much efort' or 'so much concern' were exactly what I wanted to know. Thanks so much. You were a great help to me.
    – Mickey Mouse
    Commented Oct 18, 2016 at 12:57

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