Dear Father Hunwicke, on Radio 4 the other day: 'That is something that me and my colleagues have been looking into.' ('Me want...' 'me go...' 'me hungry...')? and 'me' first! That sentence seems to reflect some of the changes in our society.
This sort of mistake is of course very common, because the genitive plural ("of measures") falsely attracts the plural copula ("are"), instead of the more distant singular ("range") correctly requiring the singular "is".
'"Greed is Dead," co-authored by John Kay and I' (Sir Paul Collier, Professor of Economics and Public Policy at the Oxford Blavatnik School of Government; article 'Why we should be more like Denmark', posted today on Unherd).
If there is a range of measures, perhaps we can measure the measures with a measure. The measures by which we measure the measures with a measure could also then be measured.
Fowler would allow the use of the plural on the grounds that the measures had been taken rather than the number of them.Similarly,a number of letters have ben received.
I think The Flying Dutchman is correct in strict terms. However, there are undoubtedly cases where a grammatically singular term conveys a plural sense. Would it sound natural, for example, to say 'The Police IS after me'? Or the 'The couple upstairs IS having a noisy argument'? I would say that although in each case Police and Couple is grammatically singular, they are more intuitively imagined here in a plural sense. (Unless one were happy to say that the couple was arguing with ITself; awkward, I think.) On the other hand, it does not necessarily sound odd to say 'An army marches on ITS stomach', even though in reality thousands of individual tommies' tummies might be a-rumble.
Do not the Classical languages, certainly Greek, have irregularities like this? "Construction according to sense" is a phrase I remember, signifying that strict grammatical rules did not apply in particular cases. Certainly Greek neuter plurals took singular verbs. Much of it is to do with familiarity. I agree that "a range of...are" is jarring, but "a number of ...are" less so.
My local newspaper today has an article which starts 'The government are...' and in the very next line writes 'the government is ...' Hedging their bets here.
“Range” is the head of the noun phrase; the singular verb form is in order.
ReplyDeleteDear Father Hunwicke, on Radio 4 the other day: 'That is something that me and my colleagues have been looking into.' ('Me want...' 'me go...' 'me hungry...')? and 'me' first! That sentence seems to reflect some of the changes in our society.
ReplyDeleteYou are not alone.
ReplyDeleteMoreover, 'a range of', like 'a number of', usually adds nothing but length to a sentence.
ReplyDeleteFowler would allow the plural on the grounds that the measures are in place,not the range.Similarly,A number of letters have been received.
ReplyDeleteThis sort of mistake is of course very common, because the genitive plural ("of measures") falsely attracts the plural copula ("are"), instead of the more distant singular ("range") correctly requiring the singular "is".
ReplyDelete'"Greed is Dead," co-authored by John Kay and I' (Sir Paul Collier, Professor of Economics and Public Policy at the Oxford Blavatnik School of Government; article 'Why we should be more like Denmark', posted today on Unherd).
ReplyDeleteIf there is a range of measures, perhaps we can measure the measures with a measure. The measures by which we measure the measures with a measure could also then be measured.
ReplyDeleteFowler would allow the use of the plural on the grounds that the measures had been taken rather than the number of them.Similarly,a number of letters have ben received.
ReplyDeleteHaven't you heard? The number of the verb is governed by the nearest noun. So much simpler than parsing.
ReplyDeleteI think The Flying Dutchman is correct in strict terms. However, there are undoubtedly cases where a grammatically singular term conveys a plural sense. Would it sound natural, for example, to say 'The Police IS after me'? Or the 'The couple upstairs IS having a noisy argument'? I would say that although in each case Police and Couple is grammatically singular, they are more intuitively imagined here in a plural sense. (Unless one were happy to say that the couple was arguing with ITself; awkward, I think.) On the other hand, it does not necessarily sound odd to say 'An army marches on ITS stomach', even though in reality thousands of individual tommies' tummies might be a-rumble.
ReplyDeleteDo not the Classical languages, certainly Greek, have irregularities like this? "Construction according to sense" is a phrase I remember, signifying that strict grammatical rules did not apply in particular cases. Certainly Greek neuter plurals took singular verbs. Much of it is to do with familiarity. I agree that "a range of...are" is jarring, but "a number of ...are" less so.
ReplyDeleteMy local newspaper today has an article which starts 'The government are...' and in the very next line writes 'the government is ...' Hedging their bets here.
ReplyDelete