Sunday, June 10, 2018

grammatical number - Which is it: "1½ years old" or "1½ year old"?




1½ is not yet 2 or more, so which do we properly say: "1½ years old" or "1½ year old"?


Answer



If the entry is part of a classification:




That kid is a one-and-a-half-year-old.





If the entry is describing the age of the person:




That kid is one and a half years old.




Both of these work, and work similarly for whole numbers:





That man is a 50-year-old [person].



That man is 50 years old.



No comments:

Post a Comment