So OT: A Grammar Question

musicvid10 wrote on 5/16/2015, 12:51 PM

Well, at least I spelled grammar right.

Look at the two short sentences:
"The net loss from the two-step conversion was 4%."
"The net losses from the two-step conversion were 4%."

OK, grammar-geeks. Which is it -- singular or plural?

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Comments

Chienworks wrote on 5/17/2015, 12:54 PM

"Less relates to quantity, but fewer relates to numbers."

I've heard that explanation before, but i'm still trying to wrap my head around how and when 'quantity' and 'numbers' are different things.

I guess my take on it is that you use 'less' when it's an indeterminate number, like the number of particles of flour there might be in the mix, as compared to when the number could be determined. Of course, this gets muddied because you could say '3 cups of flour is less than 4 cups', or '3 is fewer cups of flour than 4'. But even in this case less refers to flour while fewer refers to cups.

On the other hand, will the world explode, or for that matter will anyone ever be even slightly confused if the words are swapped?

earthrisers wrote on 5/18/2015, 11:22 AM

I'm pretty sure that "Sony is..." Or "Sony are..." Is a matter of whether you're writing in the USA or in Great Britain and Australia. In the US, collective nouns are singular. In them-there other places, collective nouns are plural. Both make sense, in the pure-logic-of-things kind of way.

Geoff_Wood wrote on 5/18/2015, 11:03 PM

If you are talking about a nett amount, then the subject is a single unit. So "was" is correct.

geoff