subject/verb agreement
Something seems amiss here.
Last night, a few friends of ours were arguing over an agreement issue. The specific sentence began with "a lot of things is..." and ended with whatever finished the thought.
I define the subject as "a lot of things." I would follow this with ARE.
However, my friends insisted that the subject is actually "a lot" and the verb would be IS.
Clarification please? I've been out of college a loooooong time and cannot articulate why I think IS would be incorrect.
EDIT: A discussion of this very thing is on this page:
http://forum.wordreference.com/showthread.php?t=460286
And: in this case, LOT is used to mean "group of" or "many." I would likely use MANY in writing ("many things are...").
Last night, a few friends of ours were arguing over an agreement issue. The specific sentence began with "a lot of things is..." and ended with whatever finished the thought.
I define the subject as "a lot of things." I would follow this with ARE.
However, my friends insisted that the subject is actually "a lot" and the verb would be IS.
Clarification please? I've been out of college a loooooong time and cannot articulate why I think IS would be incorrect.
EDIT: A discussion of this very thing is on this page:
http://forum.wordreference.com/showthread.php?t=460286
And: in this case, LOT is used to mean "group of" or "many." I would likely use MANY in writing ("many things are...").