Poll: The wages of sin ____ death.
The wages of sin ____ death. |
|
Votes: 502
Comments: 14
Added: March 2005
Comments:
| Not sure - 8th April 2005 04:17 |
| Why 'is'? |
| Deen - 17th April 2005 15:47 |
| Indeed, why? |
| wagesofsin - 20th April 2005 11:14 |
| It's in the Bible |
| Brittany - 19th May 2005 15:51 |
| The wages of sin are really what??? TELL ME |
| san - 21st May 2005 02:30 |
| If you search in the dictionary, you will find out: wage = noun [sing.] (also wages [pl.]) a regular amount of money that you earn, usually every week, for work or service Then the word WAGES is plural, so the correct answer is ARE |
| ^ - 22nd June 2005 18:26 |
| Not in this case- it's singular. Damnation is not the same as a salary. |
| MrTrilby - 1st February 2006 00:51 |
| Yet another thing the Bible gets wrong. |
| gardemarine - 11th January 2007 04:56 |
| It is 'is' because the sentence defines what is death. We can rephrase this sentence as "Death is the wages of sin". What is death? It is the wages of sin. |
| Stryfe - 10th February 2007 05:02 |
| Just because the Bible said it or it was translated that way doesn't mean it's grammatically correct. Wages can't be singular. It isn't in any other case, and the Bible doesn't get special cases. It's literature like any other. |
| Lynque - 25th March 2007 06:25 |
| Hey! God said it. I believe it. That settles it! |
| SimonTrew - 13th September 2007 15:31 |
| It is singular because "wages" here is functioning as singular. You would happily have "the pay of sin is death" or "the reward of sin is death"-- and in the alternate, "the rewards of sin are death". It's impossible to match the number here, so one must take a pragmatic approach. Since "is" is the established form, stet. |
| Bartleby - 22nd February 2010 03:05 |
| VERY INTERESTING that 58% (at the time I took the poll) prefer "is". I can think of two reasons for this. 1) The sentence is always written using "is". That's the norm and, by definition, most of us adhere to the norm. 2) It's biblical. The religious among us (and there are many) are inclined to accept statements from the Bible as a literal translation. So "is" it is. I voted for "are" because "wages" in every case but this one is used as a plural noun. (Wages are paid on Friday.) Also, "are" falls more softly on the eye and ear, making it aesthetically, if not technically, correct. I was curious what one of my favorite reference sites, dictionary.com, had to say on the subject. It says that "wages" (can be) used with a singular or plural verb." It gives "The wages of sin is death" as an example, but doesn't declare that form of the verb as the only option. I did a little more research, with my MS Word Grammar Checker. It allows the sentence with either "is" or "are"; however, the suggested change for "The wages of sin am death" is "is". (Lousy traditionalist Microsoft!) |
| sunhr575 - 25th February 2010 10:09 |
| "is" , notional concord, while "are", grammatical concord. as NNS, I prefer the latler.lol. |
| dawnngcm - 16th September 2011 14:47 |
| sin is abstract noun |
You must vote before you can post a comment.
SUBSCRIBE
