why is this sentence wrong? "I really don’t like this meal. whatever money in the world wouldn’t get me to eat it."

Question

The answer was "I really don’t like this meal. All the money in the world wouldn’t get me to eat it." I think it means "Even though I can get all the money in the world, I am not going to eat this disgusting food " so I can understand why this is the correct answer.

However, somehow this sentence also make sense to me "I really don’t like this meal. whatever money in the world wouldn’t get me to eat it."

Can anyone please explain me why this sentence does not make sense? Is it the grammar mistake? or is it just simply does not make sense at all?

Answer 1

The first example you give is fine and a fairly common idiom:

I wouldn't do that for all the money in the world.

or

All the money in the world wouldn't persuade me to do that.

But, I'm afraid your own example makes no sense:

"I really don’t like this meal. Whatever money in the world wouldn’t get me to eat it."

I suppose you could phrase it like this....

Whatever money there is in the world, it wouldn't persuade me to eat it.

But I wouldn't use this myself. It isn't wrong, it is just unnecessarily wordy and subtracts from the impact of the hyperbole if anything.

Other similar expressions such as "not for all the tea in china" do not attempt to determine how much tea there may or may not be. It is just assumed there is a lot.

Answer 2

Your whatever-clause lacks a verb and is therefore ungrammatical:

Whatever money in the world, I wouldn't eat it. ^NO

Either of these would work:

I wouldn't eat it, whatever you offered to pay me.

No matter what you offered to pay me, I wouldn't eat it.

With "no matter" you can also say:

I wouldn't eat it, no matter what!

That is a kind of ellipsis where the missing verb phrase expresses the idea "no matter what [the condition or circumstances happened to be]" or "no matter what [was happening]". It is a variety of BE ellipsis. No matter what [BE].

.... no matter what [the condition | circumstances happened to be]

no matter what! is synonymous with under any circumstances.