Search results for 'tag:Predicates tag:Singular nouns' matching tags 'Predicates' and 'Singular nouns'

Re: one or two was

Hoa Thai — Tue, 11 Dec 2007 01:57:57 GMT

Avangi wrote:
Good morning, Hoa Thai,

I appreciate the research. I think your second example is a little bit different, but I'm not sure I can explain it. The gist of it is, ten years ago you might have gotten one or two [things] while now you get twelve. Since the verb is "to be" you can exchange the subject with the predicate nominative and the meaning is the same: "Betty is my sister. My sister is Betty." So your sentence could read, "A decade ago, the norm [the normal amount] was one or two." Or you could say, "The amount was two or three." "Norm" and "amount" are singular nouns and would take the singular verb "was." I think it would be like saying, "The score was two or three," and then turning it around and saying, "Two or three was the score." Nobody would say, "Two or three were the score." But I don't know how to justify it formally.

Regards, - A.

(Thanks, Philip)

P.S. Looking back at Jack London's piece, we missed one of his baddies: "Most of those oyster pirates was shot or died in jail." "Most" is a plural noun, like "many", and takes the plural verb, "were."

Hi Avangi,

Your "exchanging the subject with the predicate nominative" comment reinforces what I learned but did not often pay attention.

Thank you for spending your time helping me to think a bit deeper.

Best Regards,
Hoa Thai

Re: one or two was

Avangi — Mon, 10 Dec 2007 16:05:40 GMT

Good morning, Hoa Thai,

I appreciate the research. I think your second example is a little bit different, but I'm not sure I can explain it. The gist of it is, ten years ago you might have gotten one or two [things] while now you get twelve. Since the verb is "to be" you can exchange the subject with the predicate nominative and the meaning is the same: "Betty is my sister. My sister is Betty." So your sentence could read, "A decade ago, the norm [the normal amount] was one or two." Or you could say, "The amount was two or three." "Norm" and "amount" are singular nouns and would take the singular verb "was." I think it would be like saying, "The score was two or three," and then turning it around and saying, "Two or three was the score." Nobody would say, "Two or three were the score." But I don't know how to justify it formally.

Regards, - A.

(Thanks, Philip)

P.S. Looking back at Jack London's piece, we missed one of his baddies: "Most of those oyster pirates was shot or died in jail." "Most" is a plural noun, like "many", and takes the plural verb, "were."

Re: can you tell me my mistake please?

Crux_online — Wed, 23 Nov 2005 15:45:36 GMT

There are many mistakes here, mostly of usage. I will address the major problems here.

First sentence: a teen have benn victim of a short missed ,then he tried to kill his agressor,he had a feud with the two boys.

Let's correct the spelling first:

A teen have been victim of a shot missed, then he tried to kill his aggressor, he had a feud with the two boys.

Here, have been does not agrees with the subject. In order to agree with the 3rd person singular noun teen, have been must become has been.

A teen has been victim of a shot missed, then he tried to kill his aggressor, he had a feud with the two boys.

Now let's look at the tone of the sentence. When you use a construction like has been, you are usually talking about some past event--you really are not concerned with the event itself, just that it has happened. Here, however, you are describing a specific event. You will want to point to that past event with a verb in the simple past (we'll add the proper article, a, for good measure:

A teen was a victim of a shot missed, then he tried to kill his aggressor, he had a feud with the two boys.

Now you have a complete sentence up to the underlined portion. The underlined portion should be a separate sentence because it is a separat thought and includes its own subject and predicate:

A teen was a victim of a shot [that] missed, then he tried to kill his aggressor, He had a feud with the two boys.

These sentences are now complete and correct.

Here is the rest with the errors underlined:

For the principal who try to make her life bettter , the solution isn't it police but more discussion, help and hope.she says that apathy and rage are the enemies of children not knives an guns

And corrected for spelling, verb tense and agreement, and usage:

For the principal who (tries / is trying) to make her life better, the solution isn't [more] police, but more discussion, help, and hope. She says that apathy and rage are the enemies of children, not knives and guns.

To may want to look at your other compositions in the same way. Don't look at the work as a whole, but separate the parts of the task of correction and perform each task separately (correct the spelling, then correct verb tense, etc.)

C

Re: Plural Noun

paco2004 — Sat, 15 Jan 2005 01:47:08 GMT

I often see sentences where the object noun or the predicate noun is in disagreement with the subject in number. In most case this kind of imbalanced singular noun is followed by a sentence or clause that explains it. I feel this disagreement would be intentionally used by writers to attract readers' attention to the noun, and I call it "focusing singular", though no mention is made about this in any grammar book.

Some examples I found in web sites:
(EX) Elephants have a long trunk. They lift their food with this trunk and put in into their mouths.
(EX) Giraffes have a long neck that allows them to reach food other organisms cannot reach.
(EX) Jets have a special engine that mixes air with fuel. Then it burns the mixture to make hot air.

paco