By Singular verbs, Countable nouns

Please kindly indicate the correct answers for the following questions and justifications to the answers. 1. They do these things so quietly that nobody is ever sure of what (is/ are) happening. 2. Various kinds of food (has /have) been already been prepared. Come and help yourself to...

Hi Amy >However, even when it means "many pieces of news', it is used with a singular verb. Do you mean 'a three pieces of news are reported' is incorrect? If so, this is a little different to an uncountable noun, isn't it? Because we can use both an uncountable noun and a plural verb with...

Feebs11 wrote:News is a plural noun always used with a singular verb, meaning information about recent events or happenings, especially as reported by newspapers, periodicals, radio, or television.Hi FeebsI was taught that 'news' is an uncountable noun.

Selecter wrote: Maya2 wrote: Nona is right Majority has plural value It's not always true.A/The majority of + plural noun = plural verb (are)The majority of + uncountable noun = singular verb (is) Moroccan is a countable noun The majority of + uncountable noun = singular verb -- I was not...

Hi guys, The majority of + uncountable noun = singular verb (is) This structure is somewhat controversial. My dictionary comments that 'Some people feel that majority in this sense should only be used with countable nouns', although it goes on to recognize that we often in fact say things like...

Maya2 wrote:Nona is right Majority has plural valueIt's not always true.A/The majority of + plural noun = plural verb (are)The majority of + uncountable noun = singular verb (is)

In the following cases, beer/wine/cruide oil are not countable nouns. Therefore, in order to count them, I added extra information and changed them as follows:1. Two bottles of beer 2. Two bottles of wine3. 1,000 gallons of cruide oilNow my question is this: Do the examples above 1 to 3 take a...

Believer wrote: Hi, Yoong Liat I was looking at my Collins Cobuild Advanced Learner's English Dictionary for the word 'ash' and it had a notation among other notations something like this. Can you tell me if that tells anything about its countability. I am confused about the "also N in pl"...

Hiops wrote:1.Why do you think this is right?Why you think this is right?2. Thre is a lot of books on the shelf. Thre are a lot of books on the shelf. The phrase 'a lot of' means 'many'. That's why you should say 'There are a lot of ..." But if you use 'a lot of' with an uncountable noun, then...

Yes, "rate" gets a singular verb. It's a countable noun. You can have growth rates as well.