"Was" or "were"

An argument could be made for either verb form: two liters or one quantity. You may choose ('were' is safer).

Liters is the subject, so the verb is the plural were.

One would say, "A liter of milk was spilled on the floor," but it would be, "Two liters of milk were spilled on the floor."

Unfortunateluy, not true, Sam. You need to open your horizons. Many people conceive of or imply single quantities. The examples are myriad:

220 million dollars was spent on new technology
All told, an estimated 140 million gallons was spilled
etc.

Goodness, Mr. Mccawber, you are absolutely correct, albeit, you seem to have your knickers in a bit of a twist this morning.

It was an early morning answer and I was thinking of spilling milk (albeit, quarts, not liters) on my kitchen floor when I gave that answer. Although it would be technically correct to think of the 2 liters as a single quantity and use "was", I don't typically u

Oops..and now I have gone and misspelled your name, Mr. Micawber. Apologies.

albeit, you seem to have your knickers in a bit of a twist this morning.
No twist in my knickers, Sam; this is my usual self. I don't like misleading information, as for instance when you suggest that the absolute quantity makes the difference.

I don't believe I gave that as an absolute, just as what my personal practice is. If that was misleading, mea culpa.

'two liters of milk was spilled on the floor' is the correct use of 'was'.

Milk in itself singular. The 'two liters' simply make the description of the milk, without changing the number of instances of this milk.

Were is used when we're talking about something explicitly plural, by this, I mean the actual word is plural (commonly given the suffix '-en' or '-s'). For example 'The

No, sorry, omgilyx, but your post is rather confused. Milk is not singular; it is uncountable. Milk grammatically describes liters (as does two). It is grammatical concord that suggests the plural verb (liters...were), proximal concord that suggests the singular verb (milk...was), and notional concord ( [2 liters of milk] was) that suggests the

Milk is a uncountable noun (basically singular for the sake of was = singular, were = plural), milk is the subject of the sentence, milk therefore is paired with the word was.