The Grammar Logs
#550

Which is correct?

• Less than one third of the pies are ready.
Or

• Less than one third of the pies is ready.

One third of the pies is a countable sum, so you want the plural "are." To go along with that notion of countability, however, "fewer" would be better than "less."

I've seen grammar books look at this another way, claiming that the "is" in this sentence is an existential assertion and that the prepositional phrase modifies the manner in which he is; it would thus play the role of an adverb. It is probably better to think of it (the prepositional phrase, "in the office") as modifying the subject, "he," as a predicate adjective, and, therefore, to play an adjectival role.

After reading the subject/verb agreement, then am I correct in using the word was in the sentence below?

The murder weapon was not located; however, one expended .40 caliber shell casing, and one bullet projectile was recovered from the scene.

I think the "and" in that sentence is connecting to discrete pieces of the forensic puzzle: the casing and the projectile. I'm not sure why there's a comma there, and I suspect it shouldn't be. The compounded subjects — the casing and the bullet — call for a plural verb, "were recovered."

I have a question about the word THAT. I think I remember a teacher in 6th grade telling our class that the word THAT should not be used to refer to people.

Ex. The student that dropped the paper in the hallway should report to the office.

Shouldn't it be written?: The student who dropped the paper should report to the office.

I can't seem to find an example of this anywhere and I am constantly seeing written and hearing verbal language where people use THAT to refer to other people. I think they should be using WHO or WHOM.

As a general rule, it's a good idea to use "who" or "whom" to refer to people, and "who/whom" is always acceptable. It is, however, acceptable (and has been, for centuries) to refer to people with "that" when the reference is vague or to a person or persons that are representative of a class of people. Thus, "Students that study all night are apt to fail their tests" would be acceptable because because students, in that sentence, represents a kind of student. As soon as the term becomes specific, however, the that would no longer be acceptable. Thus, "Wooster students, who tend to study throughout the course of the semester, tend to do very well on these exams" or "Wooster students who graduated before 1988 took four Liberal Arts courses their first year."

Authority: The New Fowler's Modern English Usage edited by R.W. Burchfield. Clarendon Press: Oxford, England. 1996. Used with the permission of Oxford University Press.

Which is correct, or more correct:

• "..the status of the contributors would have loaned it a respectability that it otherwise would not have enjoyed.."
or

• "..the status of the contributors would have lent it a respectability that it otherwise would not have enjoyed.."

By typing the two options into a search engine like Google, "have lent" appeared about four times as frequently.

Some authorities will now allow for the use of "loaned" as an acceptable past tense form when you're talking about money. That would probably account for many uses of "loaned" in your Google results. Virtually all authorities agree that "lent" is a better past tense form for the verb "to lend," and some (like the New York Times Manual of Style and Usage) would insist that it's the only acceptable past tense form.

My editor and I disagree on two things:

I need to know if the verb in the first clause of the following sentence should be singular or plural. I also want to know if there needs to be a comma after "population."

So little information and literature (exist) about LD in the adult non-native English-speaking population that program administrators and teachers hardly know where to turn for help.

In some sentences "literature" and "information" would be discrete subjects and a plural verb would be required. Here, though, especially with the modifier "so little," they have become a singular notion. I would use the singular "exists." The comma is not necessary (in spite of the fact that you will probably "hear" a slight pause in the sentence at that point).

Would I say

He was my friend whom/who I looked forward to seeing every day

Thanks

You need the objective form of the pronoun there, "whom." See who/whom. I would also put a comma after "friend." To avoid the problem and the rather klutzy sound of the "whom" there, you might consider something like: "He was my friend; I looked forward to seeing him every day."

The plural is easy: "chiefs of police," although most people would probably write "police chiefs." If you insist on sticking with the genitive ("of") form, the singular possessive would be "the chief of police's car," although it sounds dumb, and "police chief's car" is much better. The plural possessive in the genitive form is virtually impossible, so go with "police chiefs' resolution." Or, you can use the genitive form and write something like "the resolution of the chiefs of police."

Which is correct?

• What I long for are the butterflies.
• What I long for is the butterflies.

Although it is possible to find grammatical authorities who insist that the "what clause" (as in "What I long for") is always singular and must take a singular verb, regardless of the number of the predicate (here, the plural "butterflies"), most authorities agree that the "what" or the "what clause" can be either singular or plural. Try translating the "what" into something like "the things that" or "the thing that," and that will help determine the number of the verb. Here you might say "The things that I long for are the butterflies," so you'd want to use the plural "are."

Theodore Bernstein points out that the choice is not always that easy because sometimes the "what" might be said to refer to some singular abstract quality, as in "What is more striking than the material comparisons of the two thoroughfares are the contrasts in atmosphere and attitudes." If the what stands for a singular notion, such as "the feature that," the verb are should be changed to is. In short, in this sentence, either one could be correct.

We might also contemplate changing your sentence to "I long for butterflies."

I wish I could claim that I have consistently provided a similar answer to similar questions. I suspect, however, that such a claim would be false.

I have lived most of six decades and this word has never really been a problem for me, singular or plural. I'm happy to make its acquaintance, though, and to discover that it describes the apparently hallucinatory and spontaneous sensation of tingling and numbness in my right arm. As for its plural form, my Oxford Shorter prefers to spell it a bit differently and add the "ae" ending: paraesthesiae. Score one, sort of, for the learned doctor.

Authority for this note: Shorter Oxford English Dictionary. Fifth Edition. Oxford University Press, New York. 2002.

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