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Which one of the following is correct?

  • Allen is one of the few people who understands the importance of hard work.
  • Allen is one of the few people who understand the importance of hard work.

Does understand(s) refer to Allen or to the few people?

Jayakrishnan Salim
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  • .and of one of the children who was vs one of the children who were. – Edwin Ashworth Dec 03 '15 at 17:02
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    That means your question has been asked repeatedly in this community. If you are really interested in learning the language, why not read all of them? –  Dec 03 '15 at 17:13
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    @Rathony: And if we're really interested in tidying up the site, perhaps we should locate and go through all previous duplicate/related questions and see how many of those can be dup-closed. But that's hard work, since there's always some minuscule shade of difference with either the question or one or more answers (and always plenty of users willing to magnify the importance of any differences). Perhaps we could use a special convention for *Very closely related* comment links. – FumbleFingers Dec 03 '15 at 17:38
  • @FF The answer is certainly given by tobyink, F.E. and myself in the 'children' link. – Edwin Ashworth Dec 03 '15 at 17:41
  • @Edwin and Araucaria You can flag the post with a custom mod flag and suggest that it be reclosed with a different duplicate instead. – Kit Z. Fox Dec 07 '15 at 15:59

1 Answers1

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A useful test to prove it's the plural understand is to front the PP:

Of the few people who understand the importance of hard work, Allen is one of them.

NOT the singular * Of the few people who understands ....

BillJ
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  • The downvote is for giving the same answer you gave to the duplicate question. And the test you give is poor; 'Allen is one of the sixteen-year-olds who drives a car.' is acceptable with context. CGEL (referenced at one of the duplicates) correctly assumes notional agreement. – Edwin Ashworth Dec 03 '15 at 17:10
  • @ Edwin Ashworth I don't think you've helped the OP. Note his comment above : "So, what are you guys saying? First one or the second? " – BillJ Dec 03 '15 at 17:31
  • We didn't help the guy who asked for advice on keeping goldfish a few years ago either. ELU has a regulatory code which includes (1) that questioners do (and show) a reasonable amount of their own research, (2) that they try to avoid asking questions that have been asked here before, (3) that they don't ask questions that are more suitable for say ELU, and (4) that users don't encourage questions that fail to match the criteria mentioned (by eg trotting out a near-duplicate of a previous answer). Read Rathony's comment. – Edwin Ashworth Dec 03 '15 at 17:40
  • @Edwin Ashworth And the test I mentioned is not poor, 'Allen is one of the sixteen-year-olds who drive a car" is fine. – BillJ Dec 03 '15 at 17:51
  • @BillJ A partitive construction is meant to denote a part of a whole. This does not apply here. The sentences are clear that Allen is not to be separated from anything else--he is being included among a larger group, specifically, those who understand the importance of hard work. "One of his cars is blue" is a fused-head partitive construction, because it separates one of his cars from the other cars he owns. To say that someone is among a crowd of people who believe something is not partitive. –  Dec 03 '15 at 19:31
  • @BillJ And, my sincerest apologies--I misread your comment above. "Allen is one of the sixteen-year-olds who drive a car" is indeed fine. But this has been my point all along, my original answer being, "Allen is one of the few people who understand." –  Dec 03 '15 at 19:39
  • @BillJ I never said it was wrong. If we look at my answer, we'll see: "Few people understand the importance of hard work; Allen is one of them." If we look at your answer, we'll see: "Of the few people who understand the importance of hard work, Allen is one of them." Again, I misread the comment you addressed to Edwin, again I apologize, but clearly we agree on how the sentence should read. My current point is that there is no partitive construction here--your test seems to demonstrate this. –  Dec 03 '15 at 19:46
  • @BillJ Not my downvote, but here's why you might not be correct according to CaaGEL. – Araucaria - Him Dec 04 '15 at 13:35
  • For the second 'ELU' above, please read 'ELL'. – Edwin Ashworth Dec 07 '15 at 16:33