one of the Plural or Singular

Question

One of the + PLURAL NOUN + that/who/ +PLURAL VERB- “He is one of the persons who makemoney.”- “This is one of the cars that run onhydrogen.”Is this right?

BarbaraPA · Accepted Answer

Hi Kprasadreddy, and welcome to the English Forums.

Yes, use the plural noun and plural verb.

This is one of [the cars that run on hydrogen].

But your first sentence isn't very natural. Usually we use "people" instead of "persons" -- but I can't make that sound natural.

Kprasadreddy · Answer

Hi,

But shouldn't "one of the " be singular?

Here we are only talking about one in a group

Let us say

One of the guys runs to work everyday

or

one of the guys run to work everyday

Thx,

P

Yoong Liat · Answer

KprasadreddyOne of the guys runs to work ~~everyday~~ every day.

One of the guys run to work ~~everyday~~ every day.

One of the guys runs to work every day. (Only one guy, so 'runs') BUT

He is one of the guys who run to work every day. (The guys run to work. He is one of them.)

Kprasadreddy · Answer

I  am still confused

Mr Wordy · Answer

"One of the guys runs to work every day" is grouped as "[One of the guys] runs to work every day". "One of the guys" is singular, and "runs" agrees with the singular subject.

"This is one of the cars that run on hydrogen" is grouped as "This is one of [the cars that run on hydrogen]". In other words, of all the cars that run on hydrogen, this is one example. "Run" now agrees with a plural subject, "cars".

"This is one of the cars that runs on hydrogen" would logically have to be interpreted as "This is [one of the cars] that runs on hydrogen". Although this seems not unreasonable, if you meant this you'd say it differently; something like "This is one of the cars. This one runs on hydrogen". Here, the set of cars that "the cars" refers to has to be apparent from context (and may include both hydrogen-fuelled and non-hydrogen-fuelled vehicles).

Having said that, in everyday conversation a native speaker might well say "This is one of the cars that runs on hydrogen", although logically they mean "This is one of the cars that run on hydrogen", and it would often go unnoticed. In fact, if you asked a cross-section of ordinary native speakers, my guess is that many of them wouldn't know whether it should be "run" or "runs", and wouldn't perceive any difference in meaning.

Anonymous · Answer

Thanks Mr. Wordy. Nicely explained.

--Ayush

Anonymous · Answer

well done. awesome explanation.

Anonymous · Answer

thank you so much for this! a ball of realisation just hit me hard ahahha

Anonymous · Answer

Thank you for this explanation. I always change it to singular when doing proofreading. Now I understand the difference.<img class='emoticon' style='Width:19px;Height:19px;' data-delaysrc='https://uat-englishforward-forums-backend.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/Emoticons/1.gif' src='https://uat-englishforward-forums-backend.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/Emoticons/1.gif' alt='Emotion: smile'/>

Anonymous · Answer

One of the players was inured during the match.this sentence why use was.

one of the Plural or Singular

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