In the example above, the plural corresponds to the actors of the subject. The collective nomadic committee seems to act as a unit in your first sentence and as individuals in the second sentence. The Committee debates these issues carefully. The commission leads very different lives in the private sector. Would the word men have a singular or a plural verb? Ex: (Does / Do) the three men have reservations. I have a question that I certainly know the answer to, but I would like clarification, because I use the phrase on a daily basis in my work. 90 days in prison were ordered or 90 days in prison. It seems that both days is probably the subject, as he should probably read 90 days in prison were ordered, which is part of the prison of a preposition sentence. I`d love your opinion. Thank you! With words like the majority, which specify parts (some, all, none, etc. – look at the name in your sentence (preposition object) to determine whether a singular or plural should be used. The nouns that designate a unit take individual verbs and pronouns: class, committee, crowd, family, group, herd, jury, orchestra, team.
Some examples of application: the Committee meets to set its agenda. The jury returned its verdict. A herd of cattle was sold. Team names and music group names that are plural take plurals. The Yankees are in first place. The Jonas Brothers are popular. Team or group names without plural forms also take plural verbs: the Miami Heat are fighting for third place. Other examples: Orlando Magic, Oklahoma City Thunder, Utah Jazz. Many singular names take singular verbs: Coldplay is on tour. Boston is a playoff favorite. The cardinal is in the NCAA tournament. But some proper names, which are plural in form, adopt a singular verb: Brooks Brothers holds a sale.
PLURIELLE FORME: Some words that are plural become collective subtantives and adopt singular verbs when the group or quantity is considered a unit. Right: A thousand bushels are a good yield. A unit. Right: There were a thousand bushels. (individual elements) Right: The data is solid. A unit. Right: The data has been carefully collected. (individual elements) It`s a different situation from the phrase: “A man does and does all the work.” One could also enter the list of pronouns of Rule 8, “The pronouns of each, each, each, each, one, someone, someone, someone and someone are singularly and require singular verbs. Don`t be misled about the following. Since this sentence does not contain who, this or which, follow Article 8: One of the men does all the work.
The word student is not a collective effort. It`s a plural name. Unless you write a series of instructions, we prefer the use of the article before the word students. As you write about more than one student, there are several offices and fingers. So write this: It`s a little late in the day, I know. I do not know if this has ever been mentioned or if it is because I am English, but the whole basis of the author`s assertion is fundamentally wrong. You cannot simply extract the word “one” from the expression to which it is inseparably bound, and call it the subject just because it suits them. As we know, the subjects can be more telling.
The topic here is an example: “One in four people in the world” is the subject. You can`t just take the first word and call it the subject and the rest of the prepositional words. Could you write this sentence without “four people in the world” and keep a sense of its meaning? No no. Since there are not only four people in the world, one in four people is more than one, making it the plural.