A hundred-foot road or a hundred-feet road? — Many readers must be familiar with the Indiranagar 100 Feet Road in Bangalore. Many roads in different cities of India have names such as 200-feet road, 100-feet road, 80-feet road, etc. Which is correct: a 100-feet road or a 100-foot road? Grammatically a 100-foot road is correct and a 100-feet road is incorrect. In the phrase ‘a 100-foot road’ the term ‘hundred-foot’ acts as an adjective. In a numerical adjective the number is followed by a hyphen and a singular form of a noun. For example:
• Have you read the novel The hundred-foot journey by Richard C Morais?
• The Fifty Day War, which has opened and runs for at least the next 10 days, is not just an ordinary play about the Kargil conflict.
In the above examples, the numerical adjectives hundred-foot, fifty-day and fifteen-day act as adjectives and describe journey, war and forecast respectively.
• A cricket test match spans five days and so is called a five-day match.
• A conference that lasts for three days is called a three-day conference.
Two third of… or two thirds of…? — I asked my students to choose the correct option from the two sentences below.
1. Two third of the students do not bring textbooks to the class.
2. Two thirds of the students do not bring textbooks to the class.
Almost 90 per cent of the students said that the first sentence (Two third of…) was correct. It is a common error in India. The second sentence (Two thirds of) is correct. Two thirds means two of three equal parts and since two indicates a plural, ‘two thirds of’ is correct. For example:
• One third of the class was attentive during the session.
• Two thirds of the students are not going for the conference.
• Three fourths of the MPs are not interested in people’s welfare.
• Four fifths of the politicians in India are corrupt.
• Give one quarter of the pizza to John.
• Three quarters of the employees are on leave.
Is the phrase ‘two thirds of’ (or any similar proportion) followed by a singular or plural verb? It all depends on whether the ‘proportion+of’ is followed by a singular or plural noun. If it is followed by a singular noun then the verb is singular and if it is followed by a plural noun then the verb is also as in the examples above and below:
• Two thirds of the cake was taken by Mary.
• Three fourths of the students have achieved Grade A.
• Two thirds of new mothers have trouble breast feeding.
How to say 3x9 or 4x20? Is it correct to say 3x9 as ‘three into nine’? Does ‘three into nine’ imply multiplication or division? It implies division and not multiplication. The word ‘into’ is used to refer to the division of one number by another number. So, when we say ‘three into nine’ the answer is three and not twenty-seven. Similarly, the answer for ‘four into twenty’ is five and not eighty. If we can’t use ‘into’ to refer to multiplication, then how to say or read 3x9=27 or multiplication of any other numbers? We can say ‘three times nine is twenty-seven’ or ‘three nines are twenty-seven’.
— rayanal@yahoo.co.uk