A group of little girls was/were playing in the park.
On Mar 31, 2:43嚙窮m, Barbara Bailey wrote:
Oleg Lego wrote :
On Mon, 31 Mar 2008 04:21:16 -0000, Mark Brader posted:
"Datere" asks about:
A group of little girls *were playing in the park.
A group of little girls *was playing in the park.
...
The answer is that "were" is correct and "was" is wrong. 嚙瘟xpressions
like "a group of..." and "a number of..." are almost always construed
as plural. 嚙瞇ouns referring to groups are construed as singular only
if you are thinking of the group as a single unit, which would be
very unusual for an expression like "a group of".
Well, whenever I think of a "group of" anything, I think of it as a
single unit, namely, a group.
Same here. "Group" is the noun, "of..." is an adjectival phrase modifying
it. In Datere's original sentences, "a group was playing..." 嚙緻r "girls
were playing.."
Nothing better to do besides being usenets spellchecker?
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