Saturday, September 7, 2013

usage - Is wrong to say "two and two are not five"...?

Since the childhood days we have been memorizing the tables of numbers saying :



two ones are two (2 x 1 = 2)



two twos are four (2 x 2 = 4)



two threes are six (2 x 3 = 6)....




However recently I came across a rule stating that if the mathematical operation of two or more fixed numbers(constants) yields a fixed numeral, then the singular form of verb should be used to denote the operation connecting the operands and the result.
This makes the sentence look like :



Two twos is four.



Is it really so??

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