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Cool Breeze Posted 16 years ago
Grammar

One in five go

"At least one in five U.S. children go without annual dental care and most states lack key policies to ensure access to cost-saving preventive treatments, according to a study released Tuesday by the Pew Center on the States." - USA Today

This is an interesting example of the flexibility of English!Emotion: nodding

CB
  

Top answer

Go vs goes? or Is vs Are? In my language I would use the singular forms.

— Ivanhr

  • Go vs goes?
  • or Is vs Are?
  • In my language I would use the singular forms.
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5 Answers
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Go vs goes? or Is vs Are? In my language I would use the singular forms.
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Hi CB,

There are times during my writing, I have to stop to ponder for a minute to decide whether I should take the singular or plural verb agreement relative to the context I was writing in. With that editorial comment from USATODAY, I don't know if this is flexibility or 'subjectiveness' of the author. I did a little Googling with "one in five"
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Cool Breeze interesting example
It seems to me we should follow the rules for fractions on this one -- which is to make the agreement with the word after of.

One-fifth of children are ...

Therefore,

One in five children are ...

Nevertheless, there's

One child in five is ...

You c
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CalifJimYou can't win the game called "English grammar"!
Of cou
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