Strange subject??

Hi everone,

I came accross this sentence on Newsweek " Neither do a growing number of his countrymen; poll shows strong support....". I would say the subject is a growing number, so it should be Neither does, not do. am I wrong?

Thanks for the help

Willie

a number of, a lot of, the rest of are all examples of "number-transparent" expressions.  When one of these is used as the subject, the verb agrees with the noun after the number-transparent expression.

(A number of) them do ...
(A lot of) the men go ...
(The rest of) the children were ...

CJ