There are a finite number of footbal teams? There are a finite number of people? or There is a finite number of footbal teams? There is a finite number of people?
I think it's There is a finite number The word number is a singular word and would there for require a verb in its singular form. Right? Oh, I think I've confused myself
There is a finite number of anything at all! The complete subject is a finite number, which is singular.
That's what I thought, but the textbook I am using says "there are". And the websites I searched confused me!
I think you're being a bit hasty..... SINGULAR FORM ..........PLURAL FORM (1) There is a large number of people. ..........There are a large number of people. (2) There is a large number of people over there, waving their hands and flashing the peace sign. ..........There are a large number of people over there, waving their hands and flashing the peace sign. (3) The large number of people over there is waving their hands. ..........The large number of people over there are waving their hands. (4) A large number of people is out tonight. ..........A large number of people are out tonight. (5) Any number of people agrees. ..........Any number of people agree. (6) A large number of people has disappeared. ..........A large number of people have disappeared. and, dropping the qualifier, (7) A large number has disappeared. ..........A large number have disappeared. [examples taken from the internet, not my own creation. But they illustrate the issue]
And in all those cases, the singular form is the correct form. There is a large number ..... Any number of people ... A large number ... All are singular.
...because number is the noun being described by the adjective large, which does not denote plurality. Just my
(Incidentally, this is precisely why I love math, and loathe grammar. 2+2=4. Always. It doesn't become 5 when you add a modifier, or 3 if you change the order.) Ok, TG, bring it on! I can take it, oh grammar maven!
It is a math book called "Mathematics all around". In the solution to one of the examples it says: "There are a finite number of people living in the United States who are not citizes (...)"
"A large number have disappeared" 169,000 hits on Google. "A large number has disappeared" 2 hits on Google, one of them being the other post on this thread (maybe 3 now, after I post this). One posting elsewhere suggests this as a rule:
Carmen, you wouldn't take a grammar book as authoritative in math: correspondingly, it's probably best not to take a math book as authoritative in grammar. "A finite number" should have been singular, and in formal grammar "a number" should be singular, but in common use "a number of" is used as a collective noun with the meaning "lots", and in that sense - where the focus is on the bunches of cars rather than on a specific numeral - the plural is certainly attested. 3Sons, I'm not sure that quantities of examples on the Internet should be taken as representative of formal grammar either: consider how much of what you've seen would come from discussion boards such as this, on which the tone is decidedly conversational.
What took you so long, TG? I was waiting for backup and you provided it beautifully, of course. There are many rules broken in everyday spoken English. (Doesn't make them right, though...) Here's my pet peeve. Canceled used to be the only correct spelling of the word. Because nobody would believe that and repeatedly spelled it like this - cancelled - the customary and acceptable spelling has been changed to include that version. I say, "No, no, no. That is unacceptable." Now, cancellation should have two l's because we hear the second one when the word is spoken orally. Okay, this is a different rant entirely, I guess.
"Cancelled" has been the British spelling for years. In any case, see also excel/excelled, propel/propelled, extol/extolled. ('daisy, do I really not deserve time off for good behavior??)
Upsadaisy re: canceled Yes, yes, yes. Even my daughter notices this (on airline pics) and says the double ll is wrong. We also critique news banners-where DO they get those typists?
Yes, TG, but it's been a long time since we were British. And you must put in a request in writing for time off. greengables, doesn't it get under your skin when you see the inaccuracies in a business's own advertising?
Hey TG - what ever happened to the past tense verb pled (as in, "the suspect pled guilty")? All I ever hear our great and wonderful newscasters say anymore is "the suspect pleaded guilty." While this may be acceptable, it just sounds so wrong to my ears, lol!
Plead is evidently being reanalyzed from a past tense formed by change of the stem vowel, as with lead/led, to a past tense formed by regular ol' suffixation (as in bead/beaded). I'm not necessarily happy about it myself - but such is the fate of irregularity in language: it tends to be leveled. Except, of course, when it doesn't, as in sneak/snuck.
It is the SUBJECT that determines the number of the verb, not the object of the preposition. Even if "number" is used as a collective noun, the verb is still singular. A herd of cows is grazing across the fence. Herd is the subject, is grazing is the verb phrase. Of cows is a prepositional phrase, and no part of a prepositional phrase will ever be the subject OR the verb, and the number of the object of the preposition does not determine the number of the verb. I love grammar. It's so precise and elegant, and once you thoroughly learn the rules, you can break 'em right and left. It's almost always easy to tell, however, who is breaking the rules because of skill and who is breaking the rules because he/she doesn't know any better. (Collective nouns are almost always singular; they take a singular verb, and are referred to by a form of the pronoun "it," unless you're close enough to see the giggle bits.) (A business that doesn't care enough about its public face doesn't get any of my business. If they're careless in one place, they're probably careless everywhere. Count your change carefully!) And how about those hand-lettered signs by the cash register that say "No checks excepted"? Hilarious. I don't go there twice.
There is is the correct way. Number is the noun, it's singular, not plural, therefore you do not use are.
I don't actually have a copy of A Dictionary of Modern English Usage, 2nd ed. [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1965], which the below site references, but apparently H.W. Fowler disagrees. http://grammartips.homestead.com/number.html
In spoken language, it certainly feels more natural to say "There are a finite number of football players," because semantically speaking, we're talking about the football players, which is a group of people -- plural. But grammatically speaking, the correct answer would be "There is a finite number..." because the verb must agree with the object, which here is "a finite number." "Of football players" is a prepositional phrase added onto the object. The reason the Google search comes up with a lot more results when you search with "are" is because in our minds, we think of the "a finite number of players" as a plural entity, so we are more inclined to choose the plural verb form. And most things we find on the Internet are spoken English in written form, rather than formal written English.
Presentative sentences in a great many world languages take plural complements. Hay in Spanish translates 'it is' or "there is'; it comes from Spanish 'have' and is or was grammatically singular, but a plural complement is perfectly possible (Hay muchas palabras 'there are many words'); il y a in French is literally 'it there has', but il y a des bêtes exotiques 'there are exotic animals' is fine; in German es gibt is literally 'it gives' but Es gibt drei Studenten 'there are three students' is fine. To the argument that these forms in these languages have become fossilized I will respond only that similar fossilization is the likeliest fate for English there is - and that that doesn't much bother me.
Thank you so much! I'm relieved to know that I was thinking the right way. I realize that Portuguese and English grammar have its differences, but I'm glad there is a common ground as well.
In Portuguese: Há um número finito de pessoas. (There is a finite number of people) Há muita gente na praia. (There are a lot of people at the beach)
