I believe that 3 & 4 are incorrect because it does not make sense to have one of a singular thing. You could say "half of the document" was stolen though.

In 1 & 2, "one" is the subject and is singular, so the verb has to be 'was'.

This is quite confusing because had it been:

1. Half of the documents was stolen.
2. Half of the documents were stolen.
3. Half of the document was stolen.
4. Half of the document were stolen.

Then 2 and 3 would be correct... This is because when you have a fraction or percentage followed by an Of-prepositional phrase, then the noun ("document" or "documents" above) in the Of-prepositional phrase will indicate whether the verb needs to be singular or plural.[/u]

I would go for 1.

Only one document was stolen, of many. So it has to be 'was stolen' and 'documents'.

asdf29 wrote:
1. Half of the documents was stolen.
2. Half of the documents were stolen.
3. Half of the document was stolen.
4. Half of the document were stolen.

Then 2 and 3 would be correct... This is because when you have a fraction or percentage followed by an Of-prepositional phrase, then the noun ("document" or "documents" above) in the Of-prepositional phrase will indicate whether the verb needs to be singular or plural.[/u]

This is cool. I was looking for this kind of information on "One of the" kind of sentences. Thank you.

asdf29 wrote:I believe that 3 & 4 are incorrect because it does not make sense to have one of a singular thing. You could say "half of the document" was stolen though.

In 1 & 2, "one" is the subject and is singular, so the verb has to be 'was'.

This is quite confusing because had it been:

1. Half of the documents was stolen.
2. Half of the documents were stolen.
3. Half of the document was stolen.
4. Half of the document were stolen.

Then 2 and 3 would be correct... This is because when you have a fraction or percentage followed by an Of-prepositional phrase, then the noun ("document" or "documents" above) in the Of-prepositional phrase will indicate whether the verb needs to be singular or plural.[/u]

But Manhattan says only SANAM pronous follow the "of" rule....why half too is following the same here and "one" not following the above rule in the above sentence....i.e. " one of the documents...were....."

Thanks
Mohit

Mohit, Manhattan also says that fractions and percentages are exceptions just like the SANAM pronouns. It is under the heading "Quantity Words and Phrases" in Chapter 3 in the book I own Sentence Correction Third Edition.

I believe One of falls into the eliminate the middlemen category.

Paul

Hi All,

As per the discussion above, it seems that the first sentence is correct:

Somewhere in one of the posts I read this:

one of the Xs <singular verb>
one of the Xs that <plural verb>

Can someone please why addition of relative pronoun like "who", "that" changes the verb form....or there is some typo in the above ?

Thanks
Mohit