treat this as singular or plural?

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Cool Breeze

#484686 Mon, 03 Mar 08 09:48 PM

Both singular and plural suit me just fine: More than 90 percent of the drugs is/are wasted...

Cool Breeze

Joined on Fri, Apr 7 2006

Helsinki, Finland

Senior Member (2,849)

The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco.- Mark Twain

Plurals

Marius Hancu

#484700 Mon, 03 Mar 08 10:40 PM

Anonymous
Edamame
Thank you all. I thought I might have to consider "more than 90% of the drugs" as one group. But in this case, it seems I can simply consider that the number of drugs mentioned here is more than 1; therefore, I should use "are."

Yes. That way you'll be more correct more often than if you go with Marius' thought process.

I am relaxed here.

I'm in company (better said protected) of Swan and grammarians even greater than him who have validated the proximity process mentioned.

So by the time some of you finish your thought process, you'll be in the wake of my glorious smoke Smile

And, BTW:

Google hits:

0 for "percent of the drugs is"
383,000 for "percent of the drugs are"

Marius Hancu

Joined on Wed, Apr 26 2006

Montreal, Canada

Veteran Member (11,673)

Plurals, Numbers

MrPedantic

#484705 Mon, 03 Mar 08 11:00 PM

1. 95% of ten-year-olds have a mobile phone.
2. 95% of ten-year-olds is a very high figure.

In #1, the underlined part pre-modifies the subject ("ten-year-olds"). Thus the verb is plural.

In #2, the underlined part post-modifies the subject ("95%"). Thus the verb is singular.

Best wishes,

MrP

MrPedantic

Joined on Wed, Oct 13 2004

Veteran Member (12,052)

...opella forensis / adducit febris...

Verbs, Plurals

Marius Hancu

#484708 Mon, 03 Mar 08 11:18 PM

Can't argue with your examples, MrP.

Marius Hancu

Plurals

ytsirk

#484838 Tue, 04 Mar 08 01:33 PM

Thank you MrP for another illustration that proves the proximity theory (while not always wrong) is not the best way to be taught.

ytsirk

Joined on Thu, Feb 28 2008

New Member (48)

Verbs, Plurals

Awence

#484865 Tue, 04 Mar 08 02:49 PM

So , you guys mean that "drugs" is a countable noun? Ops..it's abit confusing.

Awence

Joined on Thu, Jul 26 2007

Junior Member (62)

Plurals, Nouns, Countable nouns

Kooyeen

#484954 Tue, 04 Mar 08 06:05 PM

Hi Awence,
yes, you can say "a drug", or "several drugs". With plurals you use a plural verb in those kinds of structures:
Some of the drugs are dangerous. One half of the drugs are dangerous. Fifty percent of the drugs are dangerous.
MrP's example was different... It shows you could say "parents" could take a singular verb: Parents is not spelled parence. Wink