Given the sentence:      These are the basic security features I need in order to operate safely.   And the sentence     These are the basic security features one needs in order to operate safely.   I am 99% sure that need should be plural in one needs. If so why would it be plural (we are using the word one)?  It would not make sense to say     These are the basic security features one need in order to operate safely.   I have heard it used in singular:     One need not worry.   Why does it work in singular there but not elsewhere?
95794
This questions concerns the singular or plural form of the word "need". It might concern the property of the word "need" under different circumstances, which consequently affects whether it can inflect normally. Under which circumstance is it considered a catenative verb and which auxiliary verb?  I found both "need" and "needs" have many search results in terms of the phrase "one need/needs only".  For example:     1.Should one have any doubts about this proposition, one need only look to the perplexing case of Army Specialist Michael New.       2.But one needs only look at Ronsard to realise how much Catullus influenced him.   One is singular, should not need be changed to "needs" as well? Can anyone help me with this problem?
95843
Question: Is the first one redundant and proper, or is it redundant and not necessarily correct?  (1) He is a friend of Doug's. (2) He is a friend of Doug.
42283
If I have an item, combined with another item, is it still a singular subject in the sentence? For example:        This paper, combined with some glue, makes for an afternoon of art projects.   This paper, combined with some glue, make for an afternoon of art projects.      All of my experience tells me that it should be the first, but I have multiple people arguing for the second.
106481
I was reading these questions and I noticed that in one of them, &quot;any&quot; is used with a singular countable noun. And in the other one &quot;any&quot; is used with a plural countable noun. I wanted to know why that is ?
40457
May I ask if the following sentence is grammatical?      Our remit is to conduct research on customer's requirements.   In my understanding, as 'customer' is a countable noun, so the plural form 'customers''' should be used instead for this general reference (without specification of certain customers).   However, I know that we can say 'traveller's cheques' - e.g.,      Traveller's cheques are available at the bank.    In this sense, actually can we say 'customer's requirements' in the first case?
14150
A source says that the word "each" should always be followed by a singular noun, but however I look at it in this sentence it just doesn't seem to fit:     foo [comprises] multiple binary programs that each performs a single task.   Should it be "performs" or "perform"?
102034
If you have something like:     Get the name(s) of all users.   Should name be singular or plural?  The way I see it, each user has only one name, so it could be singular, but you will be getting many names, one for each users, so it could also be plural. Anyone know what is the proper way?
83283
We had an argument in our collage if it's possible to have such structure:     "How many -singular noun- is there?"   For example:      How many chair is there?   The claim of the supporters: This structure should be used in case that t is not known whether there is one one or more chairs there. While just in case that it is known certainty that there are more than one chair, it should be "how many chairs are there".    The claim of the opponents: This structure cannot be since using the phrase "how many" always should be with a plural noun.  Both sides are not native English speakers, then I would like to know what is the truth.
18699
Which of them is correct?     Everyone has their own stories   or      Everyone has their own story   What I'm asking about is that how could we decide that we should use a plural or singular noun after the word "own"? Is it correct to think that if a subject of the sentence is singular then a noun following the word "own" must be singular too?   Here are some examples below:     People have their own stories.      Dang has his own story.      Evenyone has their own story.
98599
I've been wondering, since these example numbers end with 1, isn't it natural to use the following noun in its singular form?  From what I've been seeing around on the web this does not seem to be the case. All numbers except for 1 are followed by plural nouns.  In some languages you do need to use the singular form with the numbers ending with 1.  How is it supposed to be in English?
69849
Especially in IT it is often neccessary to write chains of nouns like "Messages List" because one cannot use "The list of messages" for variable name in a programming language. I can't understand how to construct them correctly for plurals, ex. "Message list" or "Messages list" ? What grammar rules concern this subject?  As a maybe special case, I'm interesting in naming the number of something, ex. the number of apples. It is common to use "apple count" (altough 'count' means counting, not quantity). What is right, "apple count" or "apples count", and why?  I found  question. Maybe both forms are allowed?
105595
I'm posting this question to settle a debate.  Is the sentence, "If there are three of an unparalleled thing, is any of them truly unparalleled?" correct? The sentence throws me off because the first clause has a plural subject, but the second clause has a singular subject. My personal preference would be to make the subjects in both clauses plural. I.e. "If there are three of an unparalleled thing, are any of them truly unparalleled?"  On the other hand, adding "one" sounds okay too. I.e. "If there are three of an unparalleled thing, is any one of them truly unparalleled?" The addition of "one" lessens the ambiguity over whether the subject is singular or not.
6039
One of the things that makes him great is he brings it every night.   I'm pretty sure it should be that make him in the plural, because one of the things is referring to a lot of things and a lot of things should take a plural verb. But I always hear native speakers in America say it in the singular, so with an s.  Another example:     This is one of the responsibilities that comes with greatness and he understands that.   Native speakers always use the verb in the singular (here, comes) even though [I believe] it is grammatically incorrect to use the singular form of the verb there.
39165
I am always confused by these tricky-in my opinion-ones as below.  For example,   People love their life or lives. Girls always love their boyfriend or boyfriends. People think of their college or colleges as an enjoyable place or enjoyable places.   My point is that every time I come across such things, I am not sure about whether an objective or a complement has to be plural, every time the subject is plural. Actually, in the ex1 sentence, I think both of them are what I have seen before. However, the rest 2 sentences are not so sure if I let them be singular. In the ex2, every girl has one boyfriend-IN MOST CASES. Also, in the ex3, everyone attends one college.  In that sense, since the subjects are plural, should the objectives or the compliment be pluralized? Or, is it okay if I leave them single as the ex1 sentence? The problem is, though, if I leave them singular they sound like they have ONE boyfriend to share or they go to the same college. It sounds weird to me. Is it just me or is this incorrect?
4655
I read the following sentence on YouTube and initially thought it was grammatically incorrect:     Here are 10 minutes of the movie Black Hawk Down!   I thought "are" should have been "is" but then I realized minutes is plural so the plural form, are, is used correctly. I also thought how most people would naturally say "Here is ten dollars in change" but is the use of the singular form, is, correct since dollars is plural?   Am I misunderstanding a rule?
17554
What is the correct verb tense for the phrase "all you need is", when what follows is a plural?   All you need is paintbrushes and paint. All you need are paintbrushes and paint.   Or is neither incorrect?  Both forms sound funny to me.  Google shows an order of magnitude more hits for  than , but the latter still has ~500K hits, so it seems that both forms are in common use.  (You can also examples of both usages in Google's "News" search.)    Consider a related example:   All is good. All are good.   Both forms are correct, but have slightly different meanings/contexts.  The first is correct if "all" refers to "everything" (singular); the second is correct if "all" refers to an implied concrete set of things, as in "all (the widgets) are good".  This line of reasoning seems to imply the latter form is correct, since "paintbrushes" are concrete things.  (And yet that seems to be the less popular form in common usage, judging by Google hits).
10812
The header of  states:     High-level languages need not be slower than low-level ones.     Why use need not instead of do not need? What does it mean? Also, why no to before be?