Discussion Forum (Archived)
Guest
I'm editing a study based on a survey and the author uses the term "a portion of the respondents consider". I was stopped short by the question whether it should be consider or considers (I searched all the possible keywords in the discussion forum to do with singular vs plural nouns but didn't find an answer to this precise issue). My instinct is that part or portion would be seen as a segment of the whole, acting as one, so would take the singular, but that terms like percentage or proportion, then it is understood that this is collection of several subjects and so would take the plural (like an earlier discussion of "family" as plural antecedent).
Thus I would say "a portion of the respondents considers" but
"a certain proportion (or a certain percentage) of the respondents consider"
Is this inconsistent?
I would refer to your discussion of family and the singular or plural verb.
I think in this case, I would select "… a portion of the respondents consider … " because I imagine that each respondent considers on his or her own. It is only the aggregation of the results which appears to collective. In this case, “ a portion of†behaves as a partitive for countables, such as “a bunch of,†“a lot of,†“a few.†(See a past post Partitive)
(NOTE: Having typed this into Microsoft Word, it is clear that Microsoft's grammar checker prefers the singular form of the verb. But then, it also prefers “doing well†to “doing good†even when talking about Mother Theresa.)
If my conception of the situation is wrong, and the portion of respondents is acting collectively, then the singular verb makes more sense. Let me propose this example:
"Then the survey participants are divided into three teams: a portion of the respondents considers the proposed color options; a portion of the respondents considers the pricing scheme; a portion of the respondents considers the proposed packaging."
Depending on whether I've been reading more British or American authors recently, I go back and forth on this. But the subject of your sentence is "portion", so from my point of view it's simply a question of whether you want to observe the American or British convention. By the American, it would be correct to say "a portion of the respondents considers".
The reason so many Americans do it wrong, even so, is that "respondents" is plural and comes immediately after the verb so it sounds as though we should say "respondents consider". But if you recast the sentence, I have little doubt that most Americans would say "of the respondents, a portion considers..." without reflexion.
Martha Barnette
Grant Barrett
Grant Barrett
1 Guest(s)