| 词组 | agreement, subject-verb: one or more, one in (out of) |
| 释义 | agreement, subject-verb: one or more, one in (out of) 1. Bernstein 1962, 1977, Freeman 1983, and Bryson 1984 remind us that the phrase one or more is plural in meaning and should take a plural verb; Bernstein 1958 asserts the same of one or two. What relevant evidence of these constructions we have in our files agrees with the commentators: • One or two of the red brick and green copper pavilions ... still remain —Gerald Weissman, The Woods Hole Cantata, 1975 • ... one or more of whose members have seen fit to order the removal —Mark Van Dören, American Scholar, Autumn 1951 In a majority of our instances, however, those phrases do not govern a verb. 2. Chambers 1985, Heritage 1969, 1982, Longman 1984, and Simon 1980 agree that the phrase one in (a larger number) or one out of (a larger number) should take the singular verb. Our evidence for this construction is not plentiful, but most of the modern examples we have found are either being held up as items to be corrected because they occur with a plural verb, or they simply occur with a plural verb and are not noticed. This appears to be a case where actual usage is more often governed by notional agreement than by grammatical agreement: the writers who use the construction realize that it represents a statistical proportion and thus stands for a multitude of individuals. A few examples of the plural verb: • One out of ten soldiers, he reported, are unable to recognize an enemy on a dark starlit night at a distance of only ten yards —Science News Letter, 14 Oct. 1944 • Nationwide, an estimated one in four adults are functionally illiterate —Gannett Foundation news release, cited in New Yorker, 22 July 1985 • ONE IN THREE PUPILS GET POOR EDUCATION —headline in The Times (London), cited in New Yorker, 28 Jan. 1985 Our earliest example with a singular verb is from Jane Austen; in it the singular notion is probably reinforced by the negative: • ... there is not one in a hundred of either sex who is not taken in when they marry —Mansfield Park, 1814 Jespersen 1909-49 cites a different passage from Mansfield Park without a preceding negative and a bit of John Ruskin's Fors Clavigera, 1871-84 with a negative. It may appear from our citations that the singular is the minority usage in the modern era, but the citations are really too few to permit an assured judgment on the matter. Clearly, at the very least, the singular is still in respectable use: • One in four in our labor force is organized —New Republic, 15 Dec. 1952 • ... 1 in 4 teachers in the Southeast was undecided compared with only 1 in 8 in the Northeast —NEA Jour., December 1964 |
| 随便看 |
英语用法大全包含2888条英语用法指南，基本涵盖了全部常用英文词汇及语法点的翻译及用法，是英语学习的有利工具。