Snow

[Jonathan Lighter]

In my world (and I'm quite comfortable there) "lot" and "number" require
plural verbs.  It has nothing to do with being objects of prepositions.

The general drift of American English over many years, however, has been to
make the verb agree with an immediately preceding noun, regardless of logic
or traditional syntax, though the singular seems to me to be preferred in
most cases.

This used to be only in speech, but I'm starting to see it more and more in
"competently" edited print (though there it is still infrequent).

JL

On Sun, Mar 1, 2009 at 10:48 PM, Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at yale.edu>wrote:

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> -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: Snow
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> At 10:25 PM -0500 3/1/09, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
> >The object of a preposition cannot be the subject of a sentence. So
> >"inches," not "snow," is (not "are") the subject, and "are" (not "is") is
> >correct.
> >
> >JL
>
> So "A lot of people was in the room"?  "A number of objections was raised"?
>
> Some historical prep. objects are now heads, e.g. [A lot of][people].
> "A number of X" works that way for most (all?) speakers too.  I could
> go either way with "13 inches of snow": "snow" as head noun with "13
> inches of" as quantifier (as with "a lot of") or "inches" as head
> with "of snow" as prepositional phrase; I'd get "is" and "are"
> respectively.
>
> LH
>
> >
> >On Sun, Mar 1, 2009 at 7:51 PM, Bill Palmer <w_a_palmer at bellsouth.net
> >wrote:
> >
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> >>  -----------------------
> >>  Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> >>  Poster:       Bill Palmer <w_a_palmer at BELLSOUTH.NET>
> >>  Subject:      Snow
> >>
> >>
>
> >>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >>
> >>  Bianca Solorzano of CBS News reported this evening that "13 inches of
> snow
> >>  are expected in New York."
> >>
> >>  The expectations are for what: inches or snow?
> >>
> >>  "Is" or "are"?
> >>
> >>  What does the academy say?
> >>
> >>  Bill Palmer
> >>
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