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Discussion Groups / English Usage / January 2009Is or Are
I thought this one was simple but the more I look at it, the more unsure I become. "There is an endless number of prime factor graphs that have the same underlying graph." I would re-write it as "An endless number ..." but that is not permitted this time. Should it be "There is" or "there are"?  SignatureRichard Bollard Canberra Australia To email, I'm at AMT not spAMT. > I thought this one was simple but the more I look at it, the more > unsure I become. [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] > I would re-write it as "An endless number ..." but that is not > permitted this time. Is rewriting it as "There are infinitely many..." permitted? > Should it be "There is" or "there are"? You can make a case for either. I'd write "There are", since I'd write "An endless number of prime-factor graphs have..." -- Jerry Friedman is assuming they're graphs of the prime-factor type, not factor graphs that are prime. > I thought this one was simple but the more I look at it, the more > unsure I become. [quoted text clipped - 6 lines] > > Should it be "There is" or "there are"? My opinion only, of course: Both are okay. Use the one that sounds better to you. I slightly prefer "are." SignatureBob Lieblich Sanity slowly returning >I thought this one was simple but the more I look at it, the more >unsure I become. [quoted text clipped - 6 lines] > >Should it be "There is" or "there are"? I would use "there are" because in terms of meaning, the subject is plural "graphs" and the "endless number" just a way of saying how many there are. Consider "An endless number of prime factor graphs are derived from the same underlying graph" - that would sound wrong with "is". SignatureJohn >> I thought this one was simple but the more I look at it, the more >> unsure I become. [quoted text clipped - 12 lines] > derived from the same underlying graph" - that would sound wrong with > "is". That's also what I think. Writing "is" is a consequence of imposing a logic on the language that it doesn't have. Signatureathel > I thought this one was simple but the more I look at it, the more > unsure I become. [quoted text clipped - 6 lines] > > Should it be "There is" or "there are"? Why use the unprofessional sounding 'endless number'? No mathematician would put it that way. It is suitable for popularizations, or undergraduate text, and that clashes with what follows. Obvious substitute: 'are infinitely many prime...' Jan > I thought this one was simple but the more I look at it, the more > unsure I become. [quoted text clipped - 6 lines] > > Should it be "There is" or "there are"? Conventional parsing answers your question unambiguously. 1. Identify the main verb . . . IS 2. Identify its subject . . . NUMBER 3. Rule = Verbs must agree in number with their subjects 4. Assessment: the verb and subject are both singular i.e. agree in number, therefore the grammar is correct. We can now see syntactical problems. A. This is an "existential statement" of the type THERE IS/ARE ABC SUCH THAT XYZ. This is usually wordy and unnecessary, i.e. we can often write ALL ABC DO XYZ or something similar. B. "Endless number" is suspicious. Several adjectives correctly describe numbers (e.g. odd, cardinal, prime) but some others do not (e.g. green, lefthanded.). A series can be "endless" but we do not say numbers are endless. We may say a number is very large, or infinite, or something similar. C. Graphs are constructs representing data. It seems irregular to say some graphs "have" other graphs. It looks as if you were trying to say very many prime factor graphs display the same shape -- but we are still uncertain whether you mean they display the same character as each other or the same as a single "underlying" graph mentioned earlier. It looks as if you need to rethink what you want to write. Your instincts seem OK because your first draft (above) is grammatically correct. SignatureDon Phillipson Carlsbad Springs (Ottawa, Canada) > > I thought this one was simple but the more I look at it, the more > > unsure I become. [quoted text clipped - 42 lines] > Carlsbad Springs > (Ottawa, Canada) There is an... You cannot say "There are an..." Cece filted: >There is an... > >You cannot say "There are an..." "There is an octillion stars in that galaxy; let's go there!"... Sorry, doesn't work for me....r Signature"You got Schadenfreude on my Weltanschauung!" "You got Weltanschauung in my Schadenfreude!" >> > I thought this one was simple but the more I look at it, the more >> > unsure I become. [quoted text clipped - 46 lines] > >You cannot say "There are an..." There are an awful lot of ways to refute that. I get 20 million hits on Google for "there are an". SignatureJohn > > I thought this one was simple but the more I look at it, the more > > unsure I become. [quoted text clipped - 13 lines] > 4. Assessment: the verb and subject are both singular i.e. > agree in number, therefore the grammar is correct. To me, "a number of" is no more singular than "a hundred". Well, not much more. > We can now see syntactical problems. > A. This is an "existential statement" of the type THERE IS/ARE > ABC SUCH THAT XYZ. This is usually wordy and unnecessary, > i.e. we can often write ALL ABC DO XYZ or something similar. Quite true, but Richard said he wasn't permitted to. > B. "Endless number" is suspicious. Several adjectives correctly > describe numbers (e.g. odd, cardinal, prime) but some others > do not (e.g. green, lefthanded.). A series can be "endless" but > we do not say numbers are endless. We may say a number > is very large, or infinite, or something similar. I'm inclined to agree. > C. Graphs are constructs representing data. It seems > irregular to say some graphs "have" other graphs. I suspect he's talking about the graphs of graph theory, not those that display data. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graph_theory and links therein, if you're interested. -- Jerry Friedman > > "Richard Bollard" <richa...@spamt.edu.au> wrote in message > > C. Graphs are constructs representing data. It seems > > irregular to say some graphs "have" other graphs. > > I suspect he's talking about the graphs of graph theory, not those > that display data. One of my harder courses in graduate school (MSCS). I hadn't done a formal proof in over 15 years when I took that. Brian SignatureIf televison's a babysitter, the Internet is a drunk librarian who won't shut up. -- Dorothy Gambrell (http://catandgirl.com) > I thought this one was simple but the more I look at it, the more > unsure I become. [quoted text clipped - 11 lines] > > To email, I'm at AMT not spAMT. When the subject is singular, use a singular form of the verb. "A small number of men was there". >> I thought this one was simple but the more I look at it, the more >> unsure I become. [quoted text clipped - 15 lines] > >"A small number of men was there". Thanks all. I have passed the comments on to those who asked me. I am not editing this particular volume (yet). SignatureRichard Bollard Canberra Australia To email, I'm at AMT not spAMT. >>> I thought this one was simple but the more I look at it, the more >>> unsure I become. [quoted text clipped - 15 lines] >> >>"A small number of men was there". I'm not sure it's quite that straightforward. What agrees with the verb is the head of the noun phrase that forms the subject, and while in "the number of elephants is increasing" the head is clearly "number", if the subject is "a number of elephants", on the other hand, while the grammatical head is still technically "number" the semantic head is "elephants", with "a number of" functioning as a kind of determiner, like "some". For this reason I would be much more likely to say "the number of elephants in the garden is increasing" but "a number of elephants are in the garden" or "a small number of men were there". Peter Groves > Thanks all. I have passed the comments on to those who asked me. I am > not editing this particular volume (yet). > >>> "There is an endless number of prime factor graphs that have the same > >>> underlying graph." [quoted text clipped - 12 lines] > increasing" but "a number of elephants are in the garden" or "a small number > of men were there". This argument seems to be that semantic doctrine permits overriding the rules of grammar. If so, it seems an obsolete argument. We proceed ultimately from usage. Our rules of grammar are patterns repeated so nearly universally (and without exception) that we certify those patterns as "rules" as if a priori, even while we admit they are generalizations from use (a posteriori.) There seems no basis for an equivalent set of syntactic rules. Even if there were such a set, our accepted foundation for it would not permit symantic rules to override rules of grammar. We do not need such a meta-rule. Some common speech does indeed contravene prior rules of grammar, hinting that those rules may change in future. SignatureDon Phillipson Carlsbad Springs (Ottawa, Canada) equivalent basis to cite |
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