I am stuck in choosing the correct verb (is or are) for the following sentence, since generation is uncountable (singular agreement) and it is preceded by multiple percentages (plural agreement).  Which one should I use?     70, 40, 10, 60, and 10% of the old generation is/are selected randomly for the crossover, mutation, swap, reversion, and insertion operators, respectively.
678
Does a percentage require a singular or plural verb, for example, do we say ten percent "go" or "goes"?
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I've been having an argument with a colleague about this sentence, could you please let me know which one of us is correct:     There are no shortage of applications for our product in this   space.   She is convinced that are should be replaced by is, and I think it should stand as it is. Thanks for your help!
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The furniture in our classroom ___ uncomfortable.   Should I use is or are here? I found on the internet things like all of furniture is and house full of furniture is.  But nothing about my example. Personally I think that correct is is, but website where I found this says that correct is are. So I'm writing here to find out.
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I'm under the impression that the correct verb to use is "are," but my colleagues believe it to be "is."  And what about just: "over half our board [are/is] people of color" ?  Another case: "over half the stadium [are/is] people of color"  We're tripping over these examples, any help appreciated!
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Kindly, what are your thoughts on the following sentences:        The maximum number of wordbooks (%d) have been saved.   The maximum number of wordbooks (%d) has been saved.      My opinion is that (1) is more appropriate as "save" relates to wordbooks (a plural noun) and "The ... number" is some kind of determiner.  The dissenting opinion is that "The number" is obviously singular, and the "wordbooks" are subsidiary.  I agree that (2) is grammatically correct but I maintain it implies merely a single number was saved, not the wordbooks themselves.
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I'm writing the following sentence:     Women lead uptake at XX%.   But a friend is saying that it should be written:     Women lead uptake with XX%.   Which one is correct?
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Are there any questions I should be asking?   Is there any articles available on the subject?   My instinct is that in the two questions above, it should be 'are' as the subjects of the sentences (questions/articles) are plural.  However I also recall being told that the singular 'is' is valid here too, and of course see it very often in usage online, and this has left me a bit unsure.  Update: I have stumbled upon the reason for the confusion.     Is there any water?   Are there any questions?   The sentence structure is the same but of course water is not plural, although it is not singular either.
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What are the roots of the creeping usage of "there's" for both singular and plural predicates? (This seems to be more common in spoken English.) I have 2 theories.  Perhaps it is because spoken communication our society is becoming less formal by the day. Or perhaps it is a reflection of speakers of other languages having increasing contact with native English speakers.  I am aware of German  "es gibt" and Spanish  "hay" constructions. Please comment.  3/06/14 I ran a couple of Google Ngrams and was surprised to find a greater rise in the use of "there's" in English fiction than in general English language books, since the turn of the century.  This would seem to support my contention that informality is behind the shift.
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What kind of verb, singular or plural, goes with phrases like "a record of [singular or plural noun]", "the use of", "the time of"? Does the choice depend on the following nouns (a record of nouns) or on the 'first' nouns (record, use, time)? Or do these phrases obey the rule of proximity (as does "a variety of")?  I have found different example sentences on the internet (source: newspapers or magazines) with different uses. What is correct?  Examples:   there were a record of other issues; there were a record of 28,000 runners; there was a record of these statements.
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Should the phrase be "one or more is...", or "one or more are..."?
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When is it correct to create a contraction of words followed by is? For instance is who’s a correct short form of who is?
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I am helping two students with their English. They asked me why there is -ed at the end of some words in the simple present tense, e.g.  Are you married? He is annoyed. I am worried.  I wasn't sure how to answer this.
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I'm having a hard time understanding whether to use plural or singular while making general sentences.   Doing a bit of research I found both can be used. For example:      Dogs are loyal animals.     A dog is a loyal animal.    (Both these sentences are talking about all/any dogs in general)      A child needs care.     Children need care.    (Both these sentences talk about all/ any children in general).  Now, as for the question: Recently, I looked up in the internet as to when is a definite article used. It says "We use the definite article in front of a noun when we believe 'the reader' knows exactly what we are referring to."  I think this statement is a general statement about the use of definite article. My first question,  am I right in thinking that this is a general statement?   Second question is, what if we use 'readers' in place of 'the reader'?  Will there be a change in meaning then? I'm asking this question because if this is a general statement then if I use 'a reader' or 'readers' in place of 'the reader' then it should all mean the same, i.e., all of them should be expressing 'any reader' just like the examples above (1 to 4). Right?  Another example:     (1)  Banks are financial institutions where 'a lender' meets 'a borrower'.   I guess this is also a general statement about banks. So can I phrase this sentence like this without any change in meaning?      (2)  Banks are financial institutions where 'lenders' meet 'borrowers'.   In sentence (1), 'a lender' expresses just one lender or any lender? In sentence (2), 'lenders' expresses more than one lender or any lender in general?
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Formally, is it correct to write:     A number of questions has been asked here.   or:     A number of questions have been asked here.   As a non-native speaker of English, I would prefer the former: the subject seems to be "number", therefore the verb ought to be singular, I'd say. However, the latter seems more common, and therefore I believe that my gut feeling is just plain wrong — but I would really like to have a definite answer.  Moreover, is it the same for "a myriad of", "a plethora of", and so on?
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I wonder which of the two is correct:        I have a red and a blue car.   I have a red and a blue cars.      or        Everyone has a left and a right arms.   Everyone has a left and a right arm.      My (non-native) inclination would be for option 1, as it sounds better.  On the other hand, in the following examples, the plural sounds better to me.    Everyone has left and right arms. I have old and new cars. (when I only have only one old car and one new car) The left and the right arms are...   But are they correct?
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What is the rule for singular noun objects of plural subjects? For example I and  agree that     They gave their word.   is better than     They gave their words.   To my mind, this is because each has but a single word to give and cannot give more. However, google seems to  on     They gave their life.   vs     They gave their lives.   As you can see in the linked N-gram, the second is far more common than the first. What's going on here? People (cats excluded) only have one life and it seems passing strange that they would be able, let alone willing, to give more.   If pressed, I would claim that the object should only be plural if each of the subjects has many. For example     They called their friends   If each of the "they" in question has only one of whatever object we are talking about I would call it ungrammatical to have that object in the plural form. Am I wrong?    EDIT:  This question was prompted by a comment on  on S&amp;F.SE defending the use of consciousnesses as the plural form of consciousness by referring to . The word was used in this sentence:     Looking for a story where people download their consciousnesses into bodies   It occurred to me that whether or not consciousnesses is correct, it should not be used in that (admittedly bizarre) context since each person only has one consciousness to download. I would have therefore said     Looking for a story where people download their consciousness into bodies   This to me seems like an equivalent sentence to they gave their word or they gave their life. In all three cases I would use the singular form of the noun since each of the subjects can only give (or download as the case may be) one.
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I was surfing the internet the other day when I found this phrase: Instead your precious time and attention is wasted. To my ears, it sounds wrong. But I'm not a native English speaker, so I consulted with a number of them, and some of them said that it was "is" because the adjective modifies only the noun "time" and not "attention". Others said it "is" because that's just how it is. But I still believe it should be "are". Any help is appreciated.