[WikiEN-l] This is the English Wikipedia

[Toby Bartels]

LittleDan wrote:

>*Neither the kids nor Michael (likes/like) to go to the park now that they use
>Wikipedia.

Plural beats singular, so "like".
(I'm not positive that every authority would agree,
but this is what I've always known.)

>*One in six people (uses/use) a peer-to-peer network.

The noun is "one", with "people" merely part of an adjectival preposition,
so "uses".  (I'm positive about this one.)

It's not enough to know the right answer; you must know why! ^_^

>(I put my guesses in bold). My mom and I can't definitively tell which one
>is right. For these, it is a matter of which grammarian you talk to. If you
>insist on perfect grammar, something like this may cause excessive back-and
>fourth editing, maybe even an edit war. I'm just thinking worst-case-scenario.

Indeed, should such an edit war come up, we'd need to remember
not to sweat the small stuff.  Even the species capitalisation
is important primarily because it affects naming conventions.


-- Toby