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Is the following sentence correct?

"Two thirds of land has already been sold."

Is it correct as it has the singular have verb "has" or it shoulb be rewritten with the plural verb "have"?

Manuel Hernandez
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    You're using land as a mass noun, so the singular has is correct here. – Lawrence Apr 09 '16 at 02:59
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    Also, you probably want to say "the land" (assuming that the reader already knows which land is being referred to). Otherwise, the implication is that you're referring to 2/3 of all land. And "two-thirds" should be hyphenated. – Andy Schweig Apr 09 '16 at 03:02
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    @Lawrence: Technically, the head of the subject is thirds, which is plural, so the verb should also be plural. – Cerberus - Reinstate Monica Apr 09 '16 at 03:13
  • @Andy I got this phrase from a test we had at school and I used the plural because I thought that "two thirds" was plaral since it says two thirds not a third so I can't change the sentence to something different – Manuel Hernandez Apr 09 '16 at 03:21
  • Even though I used plural the teacher marked as wrong answer. – Manuel Hernandez Apr 09 '16 at 03:22
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    @Cerberus In "About seven tenths of air is Nitrogen." with air as a mass noun, I don't think the plural works. With "Three quarters of my students wear glasses.", it does because "my students" is a count noun. – Lawrence Apr 09 '16 at 03:23
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    @AndySchweig: good suggestion to add "the", but I disagree about the hyphenation. If "thirds" was being used adjectivally, e.g. a two-thirds share, then the hypenation would be correct. But in this case "thirds" is acting as a noun, so the adjective "two" stands on its own. Think of the difference between "a third of the share" and "a one-third share". And I agree with Cerberus that thirds is the plural subject noun. – Chappo Hasn't Forgotten Apr 09 '16 at 03:25
  • It seems like we have a good debate! – Manuel Hernandez Apr 09 '16 at 03:26
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    I think "two-thirds" is a written out fraction, which should always be hyphenated. If a "third" is a recognized unit of land in this context, then it should be written "two thirds". – Andy Schweig Apr 09 '16 at 03:30
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    http://ell.stackexchange.com/questions/5269/should-you-use-a-plural-verb-if-you-refer-to-a-fraction – Phil Sweet Apr 09 '16 at 04:40
  • Good question, stimulating comments and helpful reference, which leads me to retract my agreement with @Cerberus about the plural verb, and further leads me to bring it all together in an answer :-) – Chappo Hasn't Forgotten Apr 09 '16 at 08:12
  • @Lawrence: My statement was mainly intended to indicate that this construction isn't quite so simple as it might appear, and that land isn't even the head noun. But I said "technically" in order to hedge my statement...sometimes the ordinary rules of agreement are trumped by something else. Cf. http://english.stackexchange.com/questions/35389/there-is-are-more-than-one-whats-the-difference – Cerberus - Reinstate Monica Apr 09 '16 at 13:23
  • @Cerberus Yes, I was going to add that I agree with your statement, then started tossing up between thirds and land before deciding my linguistics wasn't up to par. Good point about complexity - I wondered about it, too. The ELL post Phil Sweet linked has good observations in the answers, but I feel there should be more why underlying the what. Proximity agreement may be involved (also referenced here, as well as your own link), though that's normally considered a source of error. – Lawrence Apr 09 '16 at 14:25
  • @Lawrence: It is normally considered a source of error, but at some point an extremely common error stops being! It is always very complicated to decide when. Another linguistic phenomenon to consider is notational agreement, if you take as the subject two thirds of the land as a whole without analysing it and assign a notion of singularity to it. – Cerberus - Reinstate Monica Apr 09 '16 at 14:37
  • @Cerberus We're in fierce agreement. :) – Lawrence Apr 09 '16 at 14:44
  • @Lawrence: Absolutely not!! – Cerberus - Reinstate Monica Apr 09 '16 at 15:28
  • @Cerberus Ok, I can't speak for you, but for my part, I had considered "taking two thirds of the land as a whole". This is certainly a valid way to resolve the issue regarding grammatical number. – Lawrence Apr 09 '16 at 15:34
  • @Lawrence: I was joking! We are indeed in agreement. I just felt an unstoppable need to fiercely disagree with fierce agreement. – Cerberus - Reinstate Monica Apr 09 '16 at 17:08
  • When a @Cerberus is disagreeable, one must stand one's ground :) . Thanks for the clarification, much appreciated. – Lawrence Apr 10 '16 at 00:11

1 Answers1

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In the question and related comments, two separate "fraction" issues have emerged.

  1. Should the verb be plural because it refers to a fraction?

Generally speaking - though there are exceptions - the fraction takes the same plurality as the thing it modifies; see here for a good explanation. In the specific context of the present question, "the land" is singular therefore it's appropriate to use the singular verb "has".

  1. Should the fraction be hyphenated?

This depends on how the fraction is being used. In situations where the fraction is a noun, there should be no hyphen, whereas if the fraction is being used as an adjective to describe something else, it should be hyphenated; see here for an explanation. For example:

  • "Two thirds of the land" [the "thirds" here is a plural noun, with "two" being the adjective that modifies it];
  • "Two-thirds share of the land" ["thirds" is now acting as an adjective modifying the noun "share", and "two" is acting like an adverb modifying "thirds"].

So in the present question, it's correct to write the fraction without the hyphen.

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