RE: job-hunt weirdness

["Pinkham, Jim" <Jim -dot- Pinkham -at- voith -dot- com>]

Hmm...I see what your reasoning is here, but none of the phrasing falls
well upon the inner ear. Were I editing this, I'd go for a rewrite:

After 20-something years in the business, I have learned.... 

OR

The experience of 20-something years in the business has taught me....

Jim

-----Original Message-----
From: Andrew Warren [mailto:awarren -at- synaptics -dot- com] 
Sent: Wednesday, July 08, 2009 3:43 PM
To: Pinkham, Jim; Michael West; techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
Subject: RE: job-hunt weirdness

Pinkham, Jim wrote:

> > > Twenty-something years in the business have taught me this.
> >
> > You mean "HAS taught me", right?
>
> The years have taught me to agree with Michael on this one.

Jim:

Reconsider.

The plural would be appropriate if Michael had written "Twenty-something
people in the business have taught me", but in the context of his
sentence, "twenty-something years" is SINGULAR.  It's meant as one
lumped period of time; it describes "how much", not "how many".

It's like "Ten dollars is too much for a cup of coffee".  You wouldn't
write "Ten dollars are too many for a cup of coffee", would you?

-Andrew

=== Andrew Warren  - awarren -at- synaptics -dot- com === Synaptics, Inc - Santa
Clara, CA
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