By Plural subject, Numbers

Since "pictures" are countable objects, it's better to say "a significant number." This is treated as a plural subject, and the verb should be "were": A significant number of these pictures were taken at the museum. Use "amount" for something...

Number. Like other collective nouns number may take either a singular or a plural verb. Unlike most of them, it admits of a simple and logical rule. When all that it is doing is forming part of a composite plural subject, it should have a plural verb, as in: A large number of people are...

Hi Yoong Liat, In English. there are some things, I find, senseless!! Or how can you jusify that we deal with"a number of..." as if it is a plural subject while we deal with "the number of..." as a singular subject?? (at least that what I've studied) "a number of" means several what about "the...

The question here concerns subject-verb agreement. Almost always the the verb agrees with the subject in number. We say "Homer rides into town" and "John and Homer ride into town." In the first sentence the 3rd person singular verb "rides" agrees with the singular subject "Homer," and in the...

Hi, it's me, Ralf, the starter of this thread. Thanks for your answers so far. A post in another thread pointed me to the "American Heritage - Book of English Usage", where I found this section: According to the standard rule, when the pronoun there precedes a verb such as be, seem, or appear,...

Hi Ralf, You are both correct. They are still considered ungrammatical by many, and you would be wise to avoid them in careful writing; but the fact remains that the use of 'here/there is' (usually as 'here's/there's') with plural nouns is extremely common-- and acceptable-- informally. I use...

When it comes to mathematical equality, the underlying idea is that one quantity equals another. 4 + 5 + 1 = 10 (The quantity) four plus five plus one equals (the quantity) ten. Four and five and one equals ten. One and one is two. From a strict grammatical point of view, a plural subject...