which of these sentences are correct?

Question

Hello all,which of these sentences are correct?1.Small amounts of land is used for keeping animals.2.Small amounts of land are used for keeping animals.2.The small/vast amounts of land are used for keeping animals.3.A large number of invitations has been sent.4.A large number of invitations have been sent.5.The huge numbers of invitations has been sent.6.The huge number of invitation have been sent.7.A huge number of invitation have/has been sent.I have difficulty matching subject-verb agreement.

Rover_KE · Accepted Answer

Answered here.

David Hatton · Answer

The real issue here is with 'number'.
The Longman rule (in the linked article) suggests
A number ...have
The number ...has
I think it's common practice to use 'A number ... has' as well because 'number' is considered a singular quantity. I would accept either from a student as both are used, although I like the Longman rule as it sounds more natural.
Otherwise, agree the verb with the word before the 'of'. Amount = singular so use singular verbs after it.

Mister Micawber · Answer

David HattonI think it's common practice to use 'A number ... has' as well because 'number' is considered a singular quantity. I would accept either from a student as both are used

And a common mistake for proficiency test takers.

'a number of' (= many) is plural.
'the number of (= a specific number) is singular.

David Hatton · Answer

I agree - my feeling is that it is common practice in spoken and written English to use 'a number' as singular' so is probably pretty-much redundant as a rule.  It's one of those that I don't correct people on as to try and explain it is rather difficult as, to be honest, most of the children I work with can't use singular and plural for simple examples, and they're native speakers...

Fivejedjon · Answer

David Hattonmy feeling is that it is common practice in spoken and written English to use 'a number' as singular'

My feeling is that it is not common practice. https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=a+number+of+people+are%2Ca+number+of+people+has%2C+a+number+of+people+is%2Ca+number+of+people+have&year_start=1968&year_end=2008&corpus=15&smoothing=3&share=&direct_url=t1%3B%2Ca%20number%20of%20people%20are%3B%2Cc0%3B.t1%3B%2Ca%20number%20of%20people%20has%3B%2Cc0%3B.t1%3B%2Ca%20number%20of%20people%20is%3B%2Cc0%3B.t1%3B%2Ca%20number%20of%20people%20have%3B%2Cc0 seems to confirm that it is not.

David Hatton It's one of those that I don't correct people on

I do.

David Hatton · Answer

Most of my students are 10 / 11 years old and native speakers - they look incredulous when you try and explain why we say 'neither he nor she is ...' so trying to explain the difference between 'a number of' and 'the number of' isn't worth the effort. Informally the usage seems to be rather lax, although I agree that the standard version presented is correct and is what I would do myself and expect from published material. I guess if you're instructing at a higher level you can explain things to people that they have a chance of understanding!
Furthermore, your ngram looks at a more clear-cut one than I was thinking of when I wrote my original comment; the examples listed 3 and 4 above are the ones I would expect to see real confusion with. I would certainly correct a child who wrote 'a number of people is'. There's something about example 3 that sounds natural to an awful lot of people.

which of these sentences are correct?

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