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Gori Posted 19 years ago
Grammar

N bottles of wine is/are?

0 In the following cases, beer/wine/cruide oil are not countable nouns. Therefore, in order to count them, I added extra information and changed them as follows:02br
02br
001. Two bottles of beer 02br
002. Two bottles of wine02br
003. 1,000 gallons of cruide oil02br
02br
00Now my question is this: Do the examples above 1 to 3 take a singular verb form (e.g., "is," "consists of") or a plural verb form(e.g., "are," "consist of")? I checked some websites, and it seems that some people take singular and some people take plural...so, I want to know which is grammatically correct.00 0-
  

Top answer

0 1. Two bottles of beer 02br 002. Two bottles of wine02br 003.

— BarbaraPA

  • 0 1.
  • Two bottles of beer 02br 002.
  • Two bottles of wine02br 003.
  • 1,000 gallons of cruide oil02br 02br 00Each of these takes a plural verb.
  • The subjects are all plural: two bottles and 1,000 gallons.
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13 Answers
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0 1. Two bottles of beer 02br
002. Two bottles of wine02br
003. 1,000 gallons of cruide oil02br
02br
00Each of these takes a plural verb. The subjects are all plural: two bottles and 1,000 gallons. 0-
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0 Uh-oh!02br
00I'm a little confused... Really "1,000 gallons" is plural? I once heard that quantities (number + unit of measurement) are practiaclly always treated as singular, except in particular contexts.02br
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001,000 gallons of oil is a lot. 02br
001,000 gallons of oil is exactly what we need.02br
001,000 gallons of oil has been bu
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0Kooyeen, you're right, it can be singular, but I don't know about it being 01i00almost always02i00 singular. 02br
02br
00I was hearing something in my head like "1000 gallons of oil flow through the pipeline each minute," but you would say "1,000 gallons of oil is exactly what we need." In that case, I would be thinking about the 1,000 gallons as a set
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0 If the number of units is one use the singular form, in all other cases (including zero use plural).02br
02br
00By the way beer, wine and oil can all take countable and uncountable forms.0-
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0 01blockquote
01cite10Grammar Geek12cite10you would say "1,000 gallons of oil is exactly what we need." In that case, I would be thinking about the 1,000 gallons as a set quantity, a unit.12br
12blockquote
10I agree... 1,000 gallons = 1 unit. It's just a case of deciding the unit.0-
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0That’s the reason why I’ve always emphasized on context. It is so important because context can sometime redefine or bend the grammar rules as we have learned to understand. 00 02br
02br
02br
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01b00Ten people02b00 squeezing into a hotel room 01font01sup01b00is02b02sup0
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0 We can't read minds, so we don't know whether the speaker is thinking of 01i001000 gallons02i00 as 1000 separate entities or as a single entity (amount) consisting of 1000 subunits. So either one is possible.02br
02br
00Sometimes this is a matter of personality. Some people are splitters; some people are lumpers. 05002br
02br
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0 Actually, I like your answer, because it didn't make me feel dumb for not knowing 01i00the02i00right answer. 050010id1
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0 Fence sitting = no rules02br
00no rules = nothing to remember02br
00nothing to remember = no time to lose.02br
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00So, yeah, I'm glad it's a question of point of view. Thank you. 050010id1
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0 01blockquote
01cite10CalifJim12cite10We can't read minds, so we don't know whether the speaker is thinking of 11i101000 gallons12i10 as 1000 separate entities or as a single entity (amount) consisting of 1000 subunits. So either one is possible.12br
12br
10Sometimes this is a matter of personality. Some pe
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