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Old 16-10-2013, 11:39 AM posted to uk.rec.gardening
Tom Gardner[_2_] Tom Gardner[_2_] is offline
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First recorded activity by GardenBanter: Feb 2009
Posts: 198
Default OT Grammer question

On 16/10/13 11:30, David Hill wrote:
Around £10,000 were stolen from a house
Or should it be
Around £10,000 was stolen from a house.

If you regard the money as individual notes then they "were" stolen but if you regard it as a single unit of money then it "was" stolen.
It's niggling me.


IMNSHO the sentence is referring to a single unit,
therefore "was" is correct. Besides, it "sounds"
more elegant. If, OTOH, you had written "£10,000
worth of notes" then "were" would be correct.

GrammAr and spulling are they're to help people communicate
and understand each other Beyond that it is a question of
style and elegance.

And no, I'm not prepared to defend that statement.