500 dollars are or is required as a downpayment

"500 dollars are required as a downpayment."

OR

"500 dollars is required as a downpayment."

We were quizzed in class on grammar. We were supposed to tell the correct sentence from the wrong one. I chose # 1 and was told it was wrong. Could you explain why?

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Originally Posted by ostap77

"500 dollars are required as a downpayment."

OR

"500 dollars is required as a downpayment."

We were quizzed in class on grammar. We were supposed to tell the correct sentence from the wrong one. I chose # 1 and was told it was wrong. Could you explain why?

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In this context "500 dollars" is viewed as one item, or "a sum of 500 dollars" and therefore the singular is appropriate.

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Originally Posted by emsr2d2

In this context "500 dollars" is viewed as one item, or "a sum of 500 dollars" and therefore the singular is appropriate.

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Why isn't it possible to refer to it as the plural? It's like in the Eurovision song contest. Some say "10 points go to...'' some say "10 points goes to.....''!

"
Literally more than a billion dollars have been spent so far on Enterprise Architecture by the federal government, and much, if not most of it has been wasted."


First "a billion dollars" are refered to as the plural and in the second half it's refer to as a sum of money?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by ostap77

Why isn't it possible to refer to it as the plural? It's like in the Eurovision song contest. Some say "10 points go to...'' some say "10 points goes to.....''!

"
Literally more than a billion dollars have been spent so far on Enterprise Architecture by the federal government, and much, if not most of it has been wasted."


First "a billion dollars" are refered to as the plural and in the second half it's refer to as a sum of money?

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"More than a billion dollars" is not an exact sum so the speaker has not considered it to be singular. It's also unlikely that all that money was spent at one time. It's more likely that the total amount of several spending sprees now amounts to more than a billion dollars.

Having said that, you are just as likely to hear "More than a billion dollars has been spent ...". It's possibly one of the least consistent grammatical points we encounter on this forum.

As far as the use of "it has" at the end is concerned, to me "it" just means "the money [that we have been speaking about]" and therefore attracts the singular. " ... much, if not most of that money has been wasted."

Quote:

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Originally Posted by emsr2d2

"More than a billion dollars" is not an exact sum so the speaker has not considered it to be singular. It's also unlikely that all that money was spent at one time. It's more likely that the total amount of several spending sprees now amounts to more than a billion dollars.

Having said that, you are just as likely to hear "More than a billion dollars has been spent ...". It's possibly one of the least consistent grammatical points we encounter on this forum.

As far as the use of "it has" at the end is concerned, to me "it" just means "the money [that we have been speaking about]" and therefore attracts the singular. " ... much, if not most of that money has been wasted."

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Getting back to the Eurovision song contest, why do native speakers like Britain,Ireland and Malta say "ten points go to.....",whereas many non-native speakers say "ten points goes to......"? Same thing here. We can refer to it as a grade or just many points. And they are given to the contestant at one time.

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Originally Posted by ostap77

Getting back to the Eurovision song contest, why do native speakers like Britain,Ireland and Malta say "ten points go to.....",whereas many non-native speakers say "ten points goes to......"? S

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As emsr2d2 wrote, " It's possibly one of the least consistent grammatical points we encounter on this forum." Some people see 'ten points' as a mark, others as a number.