Tell me more ×
English Language & Usage Stack Exchange is a question and answer site for linguists, etymologists, and serious English language enthusiasts. It's 100% free, no registration required.
up vote 2 down vote favorite

I came across the expression

... some is controversial, and some is my opinions.

Is this correct? I wonder if “... some are my opinions” might be more correct.

share|improve this question
Where did you "come across" this expression? Your alternative might be "more correct" in the general sense, but I could see a writer deliberately using the original for several reasons: to sound colloquial, to be deliberately jarring, to be comical, to force parallelism, etc. (I will gladly reverse my downvote if you provide some contextual background as an edit to your question.) – J.R. Nov 27 '12 at 10:46

1 Answer

up vote 4 down vote accepted

Both clauses can be used correctly and are grammatical in the proper context:

The content of this book is mixed: some is controversial, and some is my opinions.

In both cases, "some" functions as a pronoun that refers to a part of the content: "Some of the content is controversial, and some of the content is my opinions". Neither sentence is elegant, but that's a style problem and not a grammatical problem.

English isn't always pretty. <:-(

share|improve this answer
1  
"...some is my opinion" would make it slightly more elegant though. +1; I shan't complete the answer I was writing as this says the same thing. – Andrew Leach Nov 27 '12 at 7:59
@Andrew Leach: Yes, you're quite right that the singular would make it more elegant. I didn't think of that. Excellent point. – Bill Franke Nov 27 '12 at 8:03
1  
"English isn't always pretty" should be the site's subtitle. – StoneyB Nov 27 '12 at 9:03

Your Answer

 
discard

By posting your answer, you agree to the privacy policy and terms of service.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged or ask your own question.