Percentage

Question

Hi there, dear teachers. There is an infinitesimal percentage of the population, less than 0.001, that tests nearly perfect without any advance training. "Percentage"  is countable singular here. Am I right? In most cases it "percentage" is singular, isn't it?Thank you so much in advance.

SmolderingMuffin · Accepted Answer

You are correct in what you ask.  There are other issues with your sentence, however.

Fandorin · Answer

Thank you for answering, SM. The issues, however, haven't been explained. Well, teachers are welcome to pop in. <img class='emoticon' style='Width:19px;Height:19px;' data-delaysrc='https://uat-englishforward-forums-backend.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/Emoticons/5.gif' src='https://uat-englishforward-forums-backend.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/Emoticons/5.gif' alt='Emotion: wink'/>

SmolderingMuffin · Answer

"There is an infinitesimal percentage of the population, less than 0.001, that tests nearly perfect without any advance training."

I'm not an English teacher, but my English is fairly sharp. Perhaps someone more qualified can back me up or correct me as needed.

"infinitesimal" -- I am, however, a scientist. When you use the word "infinitesimal", you should use it in lieu of a statistic. Saying that it is "less that .001%" directly afterwards takes all the punch out of the word "infinitesimal". See, "infinitesimal" is hyperbole. Nothing in reality corresponds to an infinitesimal amount.

"less than 0.001" -- this phrase needs more than just commas to separate it.

"nearly perfect" -- I know what you mean, but you need to do one of two things. Either you have to put quotation marks around "perfect", to indicate that "perfect" is a particular grade that someone can achieve...or, you need to change it to the adverb, because "perfect" is modifying "tests".

These are my two suggestions as to modification of your sentence:

There is a very small percentage of the population -- less than 0.001 -- that tests nearly perfectly without any advance training.

There is an infinitesimal percentage of the population that tests nearly "perfect" without any advance training.

Fandorin · Answer

By no means do I question your language ability. Well, I am an engineer as well so I can grasp the sense of what infinitesimal means. And it is beyond human ability to imagine what that things can be. All we do is manipulate terms which have been invented for convenience of abstracting away the obstacles we are yet to overcome. Where are we?

Oh yes, here we go.

Actually you sound resonable, you do. The sentence is taken from Lie to me, season 1, episode 1, approximately 16th minute. And there was a "test" not "tests" which caught my attention.

Have a nice day!

Well, it is "population", I see, to be the word in question which I should have taken into consideration. Now everything is lucid.

Percentage

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