# Stupid grammar question; neither alternative looks right **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [June 1, 2005, 8:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-grammar-question-neither-alternative-looks-right/306436 "2005-06-01T20:14:15Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![pseudotriton\_ruber\_ruber](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/a9a28c/32.png) [@pseudotriton\_ruber\_ruber](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pseudotriton_ruber_ruber)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2005, 12:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-grammar-question-neither-alternative-looks-right/306436/41 "2005-06-02T00:10:42Z")
> [@Mangetout](#): > > The purpose of the presentation is to inform the audience about needs in developing countries, not to educate them about grammar by example. You need to do what you think best, of course, **Mangetout** , but in long run I think you’re reinforcing the idea that “Oh, hell, no one knows what to do” when in fact you DO know–or you should by now. When I give a talk, sometimes there’s a funny moment when I’m caught in between ‘who’ and ‘whom’–both sound equally correct or incorrect to me and the audience is subconsciously going to apply whichever one I choose to their own constructions, so I have to figure out very fast what rule actually applies to the sentence, and I usually (I hope) get it right. But if I were to recast the sentence, so as to avoid choosing between _who_ and _whom_, I’d be safer but I’d be avoiding the problem, and casting the idea about that no one knows which is the correct choice. Don’t we need to choose correctly, and stand up and explain why we chose as we did, if someone wants to know? Again I understand you’re not primarily concerned with grammar here. But your response seems out of keeping with the spirit of GQ. It’s like you’re saying “I can’t fight ignorance here–it’s just too strong for me.” ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2005, 12:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-grammar-question-neither-alternative-looks-right/306436/42 "2005-06-02T00:30:31Z")
> [@pseudotriton ruber ruber](#): > > Again I understand you’re not primarily concerned with grammar here. But your response seems out of keeping with the spirit of GQ. It’s like you’re saying “I can’t fight ignorance here–it’s just too strong for me.” I can’t help finding that a little insulting - just a little. IMO, It isn’t the ignorance is _too strong_, it’s that steaming through with the correct grammar in this case _will do nothing productive to fight ignorance_, at the same time as doing damage to the primary purpose - it simply isn’t a suitable vehicle for the job. ---
**Author:** ![pseudotriton\_ruber\_ruber](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/a9a28c/32.png) [@pseudotriton\_ruber\_ruber](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pseudotriton_ruber_ruber)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2005, 1:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-grammar-question-neither-alternative-looks-right/306436/43 "2005-06-02T01:01:46Z")
> [@Mangetout](#): > > I can’t help finding that a little insulting - just a little… Sorry–no insult intended. But if you’d asked a question about magic, say, because you weren’t sure how the magician could possibly make the rabbit disappear, and you got some pretty confident answers from magicians who’d done the trick but you decided that “Most people think the rabbit just turned into a puff of smoke,” would you go with that answer? No, I think you’d decide that one answer is more convincing than the other and, whatever most people think, you’re going to commit to the one you think is true rather than the one you think is false. it’s just pretty rare that a GQ yields a clear answer to a binary question and the OP rejects it anyway. I understand why it’s not practical or important to you in your circumstances to get into this issue --and in your circumstances maybe I’d do the same. I’d just hope not. ---
**Author:** ![capybara](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/capybara/32/202_2.png) [@capybara](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/capybara)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2005, 1:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-grammar-question-neither-alternative-looks-right/306436/44 "2005-06-02T01:28:30Z")
Only one of the four-hundred and fifty battleships are in the bay. Not a single person of the group are there. Comment? ---
**Author:** ![capybara](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/capybara/32/202_2.png) [@capybara](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/capybara)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2005, 1:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-grammar-question-neither-alternative-looks-right/306436/45 "2005-06-02T01:37:52Z")
(Actually that second example is bad, since group should also be singular. . let’s go with:) “Not a single member of the Beatles were there.”) ---
**Author:** ![Pedro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/919ad9/32.png) [@Pedro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pedro)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2005, 1:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-grammar-question-neither-alternative-looks-right/306436/46 "2005-06-02T01:42:10Z")
Since there are more than four adults in the world, “one out of every four” is plural. Both sentences are grammatically correct but they have different meanings. _“One in four adults in the world is unable to read”_ One adult in a clearly defined (but unspecified) group of four adults in the world cannot read. _“One in four adults in the world are unable to read”_ One out of every four adults (“on average” is implied) in the world cannot read. In the OP’s case, the second sentence is the correct one. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2005, 2:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-grammar-question-neither-alternative-looks-right/306436/47 "2005-06-02T02:09:14Z")
Well, no. As **capybara** shows (in what I hope are examples by contradiction), no matter how you slice it the phrase after the preposition does not enter into the case of the verb. To put in the language that **Pedro** is using, albeit wrongly, the sentence clearly indicates that, on average, in every random group of four adults one is unable to read. It does not matter that there are more than four adults in the world. The sentence reduces that to the case of four adults, one of whom is illiterate. This is not a debatable issue. The rules of English, as applied to this particular sentence, are extremely clear and precise. What is so incredibly frustrating about this thread is that the OP had it exactly right to begin with: > [@Mangetout](#): > > but on the other hand, “One…are…” is just wrong. I couldn’t put it better myself. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Gary\_Robson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gary_robson/32/3448_2.png) [@Gary\_Robson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gary_Robson)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2005, 2:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-grammar-question-neither-alternative-looks-right/306436/48 "2005-06-02T02:58:46Z")
> [@pseudotriton ruber ruber](#): > > This sort of avoidant approach to “difficult” grammar problems sometimes kills perfectly good words, like “affect”–is it “How will this affect us?” or “How will this effect us?” Answer: Oh, who knows–let’s go with “impact.” Now, “How will this impact us?” is about the most awkward sentence I can think of, but it does have the virtue of not having to know which spelling to choose. And so the verb “affect” dies a painful death, because Lord knows we don’t want to have to remember how to spell, do we? You made a good point there. The way you made it is condescending and borderline insulting, but you still made a good point. If you’re teaching English, you should do your best to stretch the language in such a way that it stretches the minds of your students. Absolutely. Don’t “dumb down” your sentences. Expose the students to a variety of grammatical constructs. Show them how to use confusing words through your examples. That’s a good thing. **Mangetout** , on the other hand, is talking about a public presentation for a charitable organization. If something sounds wrong, _even if it grammatically correct_, it could distract from the message that the organization is trying to get across (“we’re doing good things here so donate money to help us do them”). I see nothing at all wrong with recasting a sentence if the wording seems awkward. ---
**Author:** ![Gary\_Robson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gary_robson/32/3448_2.png) [@Gary\_Robson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gary_Robson)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2005, 3:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-grammar-question-neither-alternative-looks-right/306436/49 "2005-06-02T03:01:00Z")
_Ahem_ I meant, of course, “even if it _is_ grammatically correct.” Yep. Me speak good. ---
**Author:** ![Pedro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/919ad9/32.png) [@Pedro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pedro)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2005, 3:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-grammar-question-neither-alternative-looks-right/306436/50 "2005-06-02T03:05:39Z")
I can’t agree with you **Exapno**. “One out of every four adults” clearly refers to a group of people, just like “25% of all adults”. The issue is obscured because of the phrasing “one in four”. None of the examples **capybara** mentions deals with averages or percentages. > [@](#): > > To put in the language that Pedro is using, albeit wrongly, the sentence clearly indicates that, on average, in every random group of four adults one is unable to read. It does not matter that there are more than four adults in the world. The sentence implies that but what it says it that 25% of all adults are illiterate. Actually I’m torn now, I think this is a grey area. The whole issue revolves around whether you interpret “one in four” as a ratio or an average. If you say “[on average] one in four adults is illiterate”, this is correct because it implies choosing one person, given four randomly. But if you say “one in four [of all] adults are illiterate”, this can also be correct, if you assume you are quantifying some subset of all adults with more than one element. ---
**Author:** ![Biffy\_the\_Elephant\_Shrew](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e47c2d/32.png) [@Biffy\_the\_Elephant\_Shrew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Biffy_the_Elephant_Shrew)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2005, 3:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-grammar-question-neither-alternative-looks-right/306436/51 "2005-06-02T03:07:23Z")
> [@Pedro](#): > > Since there are more than four adults in the world, “one out of every four” is plural. “One person in every state are a governor.” After all, you’re talking about 50 people in total. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2005, 3:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-grammar-question-neither-alternative-looks-right/306436/52 "2005-06-02T03:20:08Z")
It just hit me what this reminds me of. This is exactly, exactly, like all those threads in which people insist that 0.99999~ is not equal to 1.0. It has all the same elements - the people who put forth their favorite theories about grammar, the knowledgeable ones patiently explaining the rules and why they apply in this case, the comebacks throwing out new but equally incorrect notions along with the earlier refuted ones repeated, the new round of patient explanations, the growing exasperation, the refusal to acknowledge the facts. I wonder if we’ll have to do this thread over and over again, too. Hey, all you math geeks, come over here and learn that it’s not just math that people reject! 🆒 ---
**Author:** ![Pedro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/919ad9/32.png) [@Pedro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pedro)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2005, 3:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-grammar-question-neither-alternative-looks-right/306436/53 "2005-06-02T03:22:44Z")
> [@Biffy the Elephant Shrew](#): > > “One person in every state are a governor.” After all, you’re talking about 50 people in total. That’s equivalent to “one person in each state is a governor” and we know it can’t be any different. It’s not expressing a percentage, just a fact. You can clearly see the difference where you used “person” in the singular, instead of “one in four _people_”. I agree with “One person in every _x_ people are employed by the state”. ---
**Author:** ![Pedro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/919ad9/32.png) [@Pedro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pedro)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2005, 3:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-grammar-question-neither-alternative-looks-right/306436/54 "2005-06-02T03:41:37Z")
> [@Exapno Mapcase](#): > > It just hit me what this reminds me of. This is exactly, exactly, like all those threads in which people insist that 0.99999~ is not equal to 1.0. > > It has all the same elements - the people who put forth their favorite theories about grammar, the knowledgeable ones patiently explaining the rules and why they apply in this case, the comebacks throwing out new but equally incorrect notions along with the earlier refuted ones repeated, the new round of patient explanations, the growing exasperation, the refusal to acknowledge the facts. I wonder if we’ll have to do this thread over and over again, too. You’re being unnecessarily smug and math is not at all like grammar because among other things there are some conventions that brake the rules in grammar. Anyway I admit that if I’m calling it a grey area it’s most likely because I’m wrong so I concede the argument. ---
**Author:** ![Mandarax](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/df705f/32.png) [@Mandarax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mandarax)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2005, 3:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-grammar-question-neither-alternative-looks-right/306436/55 "2005-06-02T03:58:45Z")
OK, boys and girls, here’s a cite: [http://www.bartleby.com/64/C001/043.html](http://www.bartleby.com/64/C001/043.html) > [@](#): > > **one of a greater number**. When constructions headed by one appear as the subject of a sentence or relative clause, there may be a question as to whether the verb should be singular or plural. The sentence _One of every ten rotors was found defective_ is perfectly grammatical, but sometimes people use plural verbs in such situations, as in _One of every ten rotors have defects_. In an earlier survey, 92 percent of the Usage Panel preferred the singular verb in such sentences. [Here’s a little information on the usage panel](http://bartleby.school.aol.com/64/13.html). If you browse the American Heritage Dictionary looking for questions on which the Usage Panel has ruled, you’ll find that 92% agreement on a question of use is quite high. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2005, 4:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-grammar-question-neither-alternative-looks-right/306436/56 "2005-06-02T04:03:48Z")
So I think that we’re all agreed that the sentence “Twenty-five percent of adults in the world are unable to read.” is correct. What if we change that to 1%? Is the correct form then “One percent of adults in the world are unable to read.”, or “One percent of adults in the world is unable to read.”? What if it’s one point five percent? And what if we replace “percent” by the equivalent “per one hundred”? ---
**Author:** ![Futile\_Gesture](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/f05b48/32.png) [@Futile\_Gesture](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Futile_Gesture)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2005, 10:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-grammar-question-neither-alternative-looks-right/306436/57 "2005-06-02T10:06:40Z")
> [@Exapno Mapcase](#): > > It has all the same elements - the people who put forth their favorite theories about grammar, the knowledgeable ones patiently explaining the rules and why they apply in this case, the comebacks throwing out new but equally incorrect notions along with the earlier refuted ones repeated, the new round of patient explanations, the growing exasperation, the refusal to acknowledge the facts. I wonder if we’ll have to do this thread over and over again, too. Very true, and how nice it must be to place yourself among the knowledgeable ones. As one of the knowledgeable ones, I too, am trying not to get exasperated about refusals to acknowledge the facts. If I could, patiently, explain the situation another way; The phrase “one in four adults in the world” means if we were to divide the entire population in the world into groups of four, one of the members of each group would be unable to read. Since there are more than four people in the world, we would have multiple groups. We are not talking about just one of these groups and just one person within it, as that would be a meaningless and random statistic. Therefore we refer to the multiple ‘ones’, in multiple groups, in the plural. > [@Mandarax](#): > > If you browse the American Heritage Dictionary looking for questions on which the Usage Panel has ruled, you’ll find that 92% agreement on a question of use is quite high. Well perhaps this is a difference between American and British English similar to their different treatment of collective nouns. (Naturally the Americans are wrong in both cases, but will they listen?? 🙂 ) > [@Chronos](#): > > What if we change that to 1%? Is the correct form then “One percent of adults in the world are unable to read.”, or “One percent of adults in the world is unable to read.”? What if it’s one point five percent? And what if we replace “percent” by the equivalent “per one hundred”? Good question. How about if we were to say “One thousand adults” is that singular? After all, there is only one of those thousands, and it has the magic word ‘one’ that some seem to think makes all the difference. Or is it, as I have been saying, incorrect to extract a single word from the phrase qualifying the number of adults, ignoring the rest? ---
**Author:** ![pseudotriton\_ruber\_ruber](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/a9a28c/32.png) [@pseudotriton\_ruber\_ruber](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pseudotriton_ruber_ruber)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2005, 11:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-grammar-question-neither-alternative-looks-right/306436/58 "2005-06-02T11:28:25Z")
> [@InvisibleWombat](#): > > **Mangetout** , on the other hand, is talking about a public presentation for a charitable organization. If something sounds wrong, _even if it grammatically correct_, it could distract from the message that the organization is trying to get across (“we’re doing good things here so donate money to help us do them”). I see nothing at all wrong with recasting a sentence if the wording seems awkward. Absolutely–it’s his call, and he needs to do what he thinks right. My point, however, has to do with the confusion that will generated by the correct grammar. **Mangetout** believes, perhaps correctly, that his audience will be thrown off by the “questionable” grammar issues. My belief is that no one will react in the slightest (whether the grammar is right OR wrong–it’s a slide show, for Chrissake), but since he knows what’s correct now, he should use the correct form instead of seeking out the shelter of the avoidant “solution,” that solves only his own particular problem. I think that’s just another brick in the Great Wall of “anything goes” grammar. This argument leads to the whole question of whether we want grammar standards to be supported or weakened, a discussion we’ve had at many times on the SDMB, and is a genuine hijack. If this is a discussion you want to continue, maybe we should open another thread for that, because it’s heated and complicated. Also, I tend to get condescending and insulting during those discussions. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Biffy\_the\_Elephant\_Shrew](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e47c2d/32.png) [@Biffy\_the\_Elephant\_Shrew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Biffy_the_Elephant_Shrew)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2005, 1:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-grammar-question-neither-alternative-looks-right/306436/59 "2005-06-02T13:23:49Z")
> [@Futile Gesture](#): > > The phrase “one in four adults in the world” means if we were to divide the entire population in the world into groups of four, one of the members of each group would be unable to read. Since there are more than four people in the world, we would have multiple groups. We are not talking about just one of these groups and just one person within it, as that would be a meaningless and random statistic. Therefore we refer to the multiple ‘ones’, in multiple groups, in the plural. You, like **Pedro** and **Stranger** above, are confusing the ultimate meaning of the sentence with how the sentence is constructed syntactically. “One in four adults in the world…” conveys _information_ about 1.5 billion adults, but the _subject of the sentence_ is not 1.5 billion adults; it’s one adult. Suppose we said “The average American earns about $35,000 a year.” Why is that construction singular when there are many Americans who fit in that category? The statement would be pointless if it were to be understood literally as concerning only a single American who sits precisely in the middle of the earnings scale. It clearly conveys information about a group of Americans, but that information is couched in terms of a single (non-existant) person. ---
**Author:** ![Giles](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/giles/32/60_2.png) [@Giles](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Giles)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2005, 1:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-grammar-question-neither-alternative-looks-right/306436/60 "2005-06-02T13:41:50Z")
The percent examples raise a different issue, and I think there are different rules for percent than for fractions or ratios: One percent of the school children were from China. Ten percent of the cake was left on the plate. Twenty-five pecent of adults are illiterate. But: One in 100 school children was from China. Two of the 20 pieces of cake were left on the plate. One in four adults is illiterate. Same meaning, but with percent the part of the subject governing the number of the verb changes! (or at least it does in my opinion – YMMV!) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-grammar-question-neither-alternative-looks-right/306436.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-grammar-question-neither-alternative-looks-right/306436.md?page=4)