Why isn’t “mobile phone” plural in the following sentence?
70 percent of the population of the world own a mobile phone.
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KillingTime
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No particular reason. I wouldn't like to say which is more common, but there's absolutely nothing unusual about the plural version 70 percent of the population of the world own mobile phones. – FumbleFingers Jan 22 '22 at 13:31
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It has a distributive meaning, where "a mobile phone" (singular) is owned by each member of the set of 70 percent of the population. – BillJ Jan 22 '22 at 13:41
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Because they each own their own (singular) mobile phone. Though the plural is also OK. – John Lawler Jan 22 '22 at 14:37
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"70 percent of the population of the world own a mobile phone" uses the distributive singular and implies (in the less rigorous sense) a 1-to-1 relation more strongly than "70 percent of the population of the world own mobile phones" does. However, neither demand a 1-to-1 or an each-person-to-many-phones ('many' here = 2+) relation. – Edwin Ashworth Jan 22 '22 at 15:02