09-May-2008, 10:39
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| Member | | Join Date: Aug 2007 Country: Pakistan
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Current Location: Karachi, Pakistan First Language: Urdu Thanks: 65
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 Re: is there any difference ?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Graver  Hi guys!
Again I have a little question for you...
Is there any difference between "there are a great number of reasons/possibilities etc." and "there is a great number ofreasons/possibilities etc." ???
Thanks in advance for your replies  | "A number of ..." usually requires a plural verb. In "A number
of employees were present", it's the employees who were present, not
the number. "A number of" is just a fuzzy quantifier. ("A number
of..." may need a singular in the much rarer contexts where it does
not function as a quantifier: "A number of this magnitude requires
5 bytes to store.")
On the other hand, "the number of..." always takes the singular:
"The number of employees who were present was small." Here, it's
the number that was small, not the employees.
Hope this helps!
Dawood |