Lots of meat should

Question

Should I use " Lots of meat were on sale yesterday?" Or "Lots of meat was on sale yesterday?"

lots of meat (quantity of meat); lots of kinds of meat (number of types) — Drew, Jun 04 '17 at 04:18
I am surprised this question is deemed off-topic since five years ago this question was, while better worded, very much on-topic and very well answered: Verb agreement of “heaps”/“lots”: uncountable nouns. I would have vtc as duplicate. — oerkelens, Jun 04 '17 at 04:47

score 1 · Answer 1 · answered Jun 04 '17 at 03:52

1

Here meat is an uncountable noun which only carries a singular form and hence you must write

Lots of meat was on sale yesterday.

Apart from that, It is not the phrase " lots of " which determines singular or plural, but the noun of the sentence (here: water and computers).

For example

Lots of water is wasted. (water is an uncountable noun and carries only a singular form)

Lots of computers are needed at schools.

answered Jun 04 '17 at 03:52

3

What if the meat was sold in bundles called lots? Lots of meat were on sale yesterday. Lot 1 sold for $45, while lot 2 only sold for $15. Would it not be better for the OP to have said, "A lot of meat was on sale yesterday"? – Jun 04 '17 at 03:59
Certainly, you are right. The question is ambiguous and only the OP can expound it further as to what's the true meaning of his sentence. There can even be different types of meat and in that case, we have to use "meats" rather than meat. I wrote the answer keeping in mind that the OP is specifically confused about how to use "lots of". – Jun 04 '17 at 04:05
@GypsySpellweaver Correct. By all means say "A lot of meat was..." if you want - it too is idiomatic. But "lots of meat was...", is a perfectly idiomatic everyday form. – WS2 Jun 04 '17 at 06:04

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