Number
On the other hand, many Quebecers in informal context will decide on the agreement with collective nouns based on semantics rather than morphology. That is to say, for instance, that a verb whose grammatical subject is le monde (people, folks) may appear in the 3rd person plural because le monde designates multiple people although it is singular: le monde là-dedans sont en train de chiâler (the people in there are complaining).
Read more about this topic: Quebec French Syntax
Famous quotes containing the word number:
“To finish the moment, to find the journey’s end in every step of the road, to live the greatest number of good hours, is wisdom. It is not the part of men, but of fanatics, or of mathematicians, if you will, to say, that, the shortness of life considered, it is not worth caring whether for so short a duration we were sprawling in want, or sitting high. Since our office is with moments, let us husband them.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Black lady,
what will I do
without your two flowers?
I have inhabited you, number by number.
I have pushed you in and out like a needle.”
—Anne Sexton (1928–1974)
“In a number of other cultures, fathers are not relegated to babysitter status, nor is their ability to be primary nurturers so readily dismissed.... We have evidence that in our own society men can rear and nurture their children competently and that men’s methods, although different from those of women, are imaginative and constructive.”
—Kyle D. Pruett (20th century)