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In

お金というものはあったらあったで無駄に使ってしまうものだ。

Money is something that when you have it, you end up wasting it.

the phrase 「無駄に使ってしまう」 ("used towards waste!") is used to modify もの。

Question: Isn't "the act of using money wastefully" an abstract sort of thing? If so, shouldn't こと be used here in place of もの？

George
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1 Answers1

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You are right in the sense that, to refer to the act of wasting money, one would use こと. For example, お金を無駄に使ってしまう事がよくある.

In this instance, it's an idiom ...というものは....ものだ. It's used to describe the general belief of the speaker about things.

E.g.

お金というものはあったらあったで無駄に使ってしまうものだ
親というものは子供をどこまでも信じるものだ
やる気というものは、追い込まれると自然と湧いてくるものだ
お金の無駄使いというものは、なかなかやめられないものだ

I think もの is used because you are trying to put a concept into a concrete group to which you can assign a characteristic. Hence, you can use it for very abstract things like やり場のない怒りというものは、人を貧しくするものだ.

Enno Shioji
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  • ものだ isn’t acting as a pkk look ace holder for a noun the way the question implies – Uso Dayo Feb 08 '23 at 22:53
  • In 「やり場のない」, is の acting as が, as per this question? – George Feb 11 '23 at 00:13
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    @George I guess so, yeah. Compared to やり場がない怒り, の creates the impression that usually 怒り have corresponding やり場 as a general principle, but these special ones don’t. E.g. 縞々シャツのかかってない家 sounds weird because 縞々シャツ　is too specific/rare to be a general thing, whereas シマシマシャツがかかってない家 is fine – Enno Shioji Feb 13 '23 at 01:59
  • @EnnoShioji What do you mean by "シマシマシャツがかかってない家"? I'm parsing it as a "house which doesn't wear striped shirts", which I'm pretty sure is not what it actually means :] – George Feb 14 '23 at 22:57
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    かかっている in this context means, it's visible from the window hanging from a curtain rail or something @George – Enno Shioji Feb 15 '23 at 17:06