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Subject:Re: Help with sentence structure... From:Peggy Schillinger <peggys -at- STLNET -dot- COM> Date:Wed, 30 Oct 1996 12:57:11 -0600
Of these two possibilities:
> ...more may be required if a high number of records *is* retrieved
> ...more may be required if a high number of records *are* retrieved
the first item is grammatically correct because it is the "number" that
is the subject of the verb. You have used "records" in a prepositional
phrase, so it can't be the subject of a verb at the same time.
Maybe if you restated the sentence to "many records are retrieved" or
"more than nnn records are retrieved," you would feel easier about this
sentence.