grammaticality - "The number of residents has grown" vs. "the number of residents have grown"

Duplicate:
“A number of students” vs. “the number of students”
“Number of attempts per question is unlimited” or “are limited”?
“A number of questions has been asked” or “have been asked”?

1. The number of residents has grown.


2. The number of residents have grown.

Which of the above sentences is grammatical? Since has should stick with singular nouns and have with plural ones, I guess (2) should be correct, but I'm not sure.

Answer

It’s singular, has, because number is the head of the subject phrase. It would be plural if the subject phrase was a number of residents in, for example, A number of residents have complained. There, a number of is a pre-modifying element.

What is the right preposition after "report"?

"He will report into Charles." or "He will report to Charles." ?
"He will report into the Collectorate." or "He will report to the Collectorate." ?

grammar - Could I use these constructions(some of, any of, all of, enough of, half of, more of, much of, many of, most of) with singular noun?

I'm ESL student and I wonder if I can use these constructions(all of, some of, any of, half of, enough of, more of, most of, many of, much of) with singular noun because I was taught that these constructions come with singular or uncountable noun?

I've found some uses of these construction with singular noun on internet, for example

• all of me


• some of him


• any of this


• more of me

And etc.

I'm not certain if these are correct and if so, I would appreciate you so much if you will explain meaning each of these as aspect of combing with singular noun.

If anyone has known the book which breaks down about usage of these constructions , please recommend it to me and I will appreciate you very much.

PS : I'm sorry in advanced if my message makes you confused or annoyed and thank you for useful answer.

grammatical number - What’s the plural of “Valentine’s”

If I want to form the plural of “Valentine’s” as a short form of “Saint Valentine’s Day” – where do I put the apostrophe(s)? Is it possible at all?

I believe that Valentines’, although the normal plural form of a genitive ending in “s”, would be wrong here since that would mean “the day of the people who are called Valentine”. So what’s right? Valentine’s’ ?

Here’s an example of where I’d use this form:

She had spent so many Valentine’s’ alone that she now loathed the very mention of this day.

– Of course I could simply write it out … but where’s the fun in that?

Answer

In my experience, “Valentine’s” is less common than “Valentine’s Day” — usually only the “St.” is dropped¹ — so I think the usual phrasing would be:

She had spent so many Valentine’s Days alone that she now loathed the very mention of this day.

Another option, if you really want to use “Valentine’s” alone (without “Day”), is to treat it as a proper noun, and write:

She had spent Valentine’s alone so many times that she now loathed the very mention of this day.

(Compare “She had spent Christmas alone so many times […]”.)

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1. For example, compare the Google Books hits for "from Valentine's to" to those for "from Valentine's Day to".

grammar - "IS" or 'ARE' ? in this sentence

Please have a look at this sentence.

"Troy University International Partners is not accredited by SACS Commission on Colleges and the accreditation of Troy University does not extend to or include partner institutions or their students. "

"IS" or 'ARE' ?

I think ARE is correct because it is "Partners" , or partner.

Answer

Both are valid depending on how you classify the entity. If considered as a homologous, all enveloping group that contains all its constituents or is used in such a manner for being considered as a whole, then it can be classed as a singular entity, therefore "is" can be used.

On the other hand if it is more of an umbrella term encompassing members, which are disparate in location, functions etcetera, then the plural "are" can be used.

I was going to assume that the term partners is irrelevant like FumbleFingers commented, however, in this case it seems to refer to actual international partners so "are" is appropriate as my second paragraph points out.

contractions - Is it okay to say "Yes you're." instead of "Yes you are."?

I was having an SMS conversation with a friend and somehow "Yes you're" came into play in retaliation to a comment.

Example:

Person 1: "You are bad at English".

Person 2: "No I are not.".

Person 1: "Yes you're".

Is that acceptable?

I would assume that it is.

Think of "don't".

You can say:

"No, don't."

or

"I don't."

and it is a contraction like "you're".

So, is it okay?

Answer

No, this is unidiomatic. "You're" always requires a subjective completion. (And to my ears, it sounds completely wrong.)

Plural possessive with separate posessions

When we refer to a house that belongs to a family, we say "family's house". Pluralizing family gives us "families". Referring to the houses of several families, we say "families' houses". Forming the plural possessive in such a case is rather simple.

I encountered a more complex use of this recently - referring to a single house owned by a single family in a set of houses owned by a set of families.

We can say "the families' houses" to refer to all of the houses owned by all of the families.

We can say "one of the families' houses" to refer to one of the houses owned by one or more of the families. In this context, "one of" applies to "the families' houses".

If we were instead to apply "one of" to "the families", and want to refer to the one house owned by "one of the families", how would this be written?

My first though was "one of the families's house", taking "one of the families" as a single noun and appending 's to it. This looks (and sounds) a bit strange, though. "One of the families' house" and "one of the family's house"/"one of the family's houses" seem wrong to me, and I can't really determine the correct way to say/write this.

Is there a definitively correct way that this should be written?

EDIT: To clarify, although I think I made it clear, in this context, there are several families, and each owns one house. The goal of the sentence is to refer to one of those houses without stating which specific house. Example: "The players and their families want to celebrate their team's victory; this will likely entail a party at one of the families's house".

Answer

The construct you suggest is rather awkward as you said yourself. The best way to talk about the specific house is to rephrase the sentence and say instead: "...this will probably entail a party at the house of one of the families."