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Which is correct?

Two-thirds of the food I eat are vegetables. Two-thirds of the food I eat is vegetables.

The first one sounds right to me, but would the second be more "grammatically" correct?

Karen
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    This is a mass usage of 'food' and requires 'is', like 'Half the food I eat is meat.' and 'Half the food I eat is vegetables'. With a count noun usage, use 'are': 'Two-thirds of the crops attacked by the flopweevil are vegetables.' – Edwin Ashworth Feb 18 '15 at 15:42
  • A good way to check is to take out the fraction and see which verb fits. Going off Edwin's examples, you would say "Food is..." but not "Food are...", and you would say "Crops are..." but not "Crops is..." Adding fractions into the mix does not change this. – Nicole Feb 18 '15 at 16:07
  • @EdwinAshworth I think I might have said half the food I eat is vegetable (singular). After all we wouldn't say half the food I eat is meats. Or would we? – WS2 Feb 18 '15 at 18:15
  • @WS2 Anna Wierzbicka, in The Semantics of Grammar, argues that vegetables is a mass noun looking plural in form rather than a plural count noun. She also looks at oats (*The only cereal I don't like is oats) in this telling in-depth study. – Edwin Ashworth Feb 18 '15 at 19:53
  • @EdwinAshworth Umm. I took a glance at that. Yes I can see that vegetables has both singular and plural characteristics. But I do think it would be stretching things to compare it to 'oats'. Though the latter ends in an s, it is really no different to wheat or barley. But I can count vegetables to the extent that I had three with my roast on Sunday, sprouts, parsnips and cabbage. – WS2 Feb 18 '15 at 20:43
  • I can similarly count oats – Avena sativa, A. byzantina, and A. sterilis are all known. Like coffees (C. arabica, C. robusta etc). It's just that the different varieties of oats aren't as well known to most people. Saying 'We had six vegetables with the Sunday roast' is a very different usage from 'I had six potatoes ...'. There are quite a few examples of "... eat is vegetables ...", showing the mass usage, on the internet, eg 'about 80% of what I eat is vegetables'. – Edwin Ashworth Feb 18 '15 at 22:25
  • I follow all that and accept what you say. But I suppose one could equally say 'vegetables are what I like best'. Anyway, my wife has the porridge ready, so I'll enquire as to 'how many oats' she thinks there are in it, and see what she says. – WS2 Feb 19 '15 at 07:46

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