I just read a draft from a lawyer discussing a mathematical display, which should make it obvious that language issues are about to erupt.
The sentence that stuck sideways going down was, "A number of curves is displayed." My first thought was, "they're not literally going to display a number ("2"!), they're going to display curves. As in, "Two curves are displayed", or "Several curves are displayed." But "A number of curves is displayed"?!
Clearly "a number" is singular. But "curves" is plural and "a number" could be semanticly equivalent to "several".
I want to say "a number of curves ARE displayed". But, I guess the fundamental question is: is "a number" the noun, or is "curves" the noun? Which is the noun and which the modifying phrase? Or is it just too late at night to be editing?
(At least, in my confusion, I got to ask if what it is, is... Me and Bill Clinton! *That* was fun!)
While everyone else was enjoying Christmas, I was telling another online language forum about the label on a box of wart-removal stuff:
Removes warts fast
with as few as
1 treatment
We've spent the last two days arguing about that one. Some have suggested rewording it in ways that seem to promise it will always work on the first attempt.
In any event, your lawyer may have forgotten something that math and engineering types know instinctively: that "one" is a number!
"A number of ... is ..." does seem correct in terms of the formal rules of grammar but "A number ... are ..." feels more natural when I say it. I guess "a number of" is sort of acting as a single word, like "several". However, I am not sure it means the same thing as "several". To me, it seems like a number of curves could be a single curve or no curves.
The phrase "as few as 1 treatment" is logically vacuous (Could you imagine it working in fewer than one treatment?) and is certainly meant to deceive but I do not see a grammatical issue.
For the warts, I'd prefer, simply:
Removes warts fast
Often in 1 treatment
Bill 5 said:
I want to say "a number of curves ARE displayed". But, I guess the fundamental question is: is "a number" the noun, or is "curves" the noun? Which is the noun and which the modifying phrase? Or is it just too late at night to be editing?
A bunch of style guides agree on this. A lot of people question this sort of thing. A few examples show hypercorrection.
All of the above, along with a number of, are considered partitives for countables. In all cases, the subject appears to be syntactically singular, but the noun that follows is always plural and, when the phrase is the subject, the verb is always plural.
Many guides are careful to point out that the number of behaves quite differently: it is followed by a plural noun, but takes a singular verb.