| 词组 | number |
| 释义 | number 1. All commentators agree that the plural verb in the first example that follows is correct, and so is the singular verb in the second: • Current statistics already show that, of the unemployed, a large number are illiterate —Adolf A. Berle, in The Great Ideas Today, ed. Robert M. Hutchins & Mortimer J. Adler, 1965 • The number of foreign-language and second-language users together adds up to 300 to 400 million —Braj B. Kachru, in Greenbaum 1985 The rule of thumb for this construction is stated succinctly by Bernstein 1977: • In general, a number takes a plural verb and the number a singular. Evidence in the Merriam-Webster files shows that the rule of thumb is generally observed. Even when the sentence begins with there, a number of commands the plural verb: • "There are a number of telephone messages for you " —John P. Marquand, So Little Time, 1943 • There are a number of things to be said about the V.I.P. list —Arnold Gingrich, Esquire, April 1970 An adjective like increasing or growing tends to emphasize the word number in its singularity, and results in rather more mixed usage: • ... an increasing number of these students are earning —William Hamilton Jones, Johns Hopkins Mag., October 1965 • An ever growing number of films is available —Ami T. Dunathan, Vocatio, April 1968 But even in these constructions, the plural verb is the more common. 2. See amount 1. 3. See the articles at agreement. |
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