Auwvax.360 net.followup utzoo!decvax!harpo!uwvax!rodolf Sun May 9 00:25:35 1982 English Language, et al In all fairness it should be pointed out that some words such as "any" and "many" take different forms of verbs depending on the context of the usage. In the example of "Any of you ..." the "you" is a plural "you" (which is unfortunately lacking in the English language but present in many others); hence the usage of "are" following this is correct. Another example would be "Many grapes were sour." "Many a grape was sour." However, the point about informal English on the net is well taken. This is not a platform for doctorate papers, but rather a group of people with common interests who should be able to talk conversationally without being stifled for grammatical errors. Enough said! Rick Lindsley (uwvax!rodolf) ----------------------------------------------------------------- gopher://quux.org/ conversion by John Goerzen of http://communication.ucsd.edu/A-News/ This Usenet Oldnews Archive article may be copied and distributed freely, provided: 1. There is no money collected for the text(s) of the articles. 2. The following notice remains appended to each copy: The Usenet Oldnews Archive: Compilation Copyright (C) 1981, 1996 Bruce Jones, Henry Spencer, David Wiseman.