this post was submitted on 14 Feb 2024
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Eh, depends.
Is correct, but so is
Because it's talking about a singular group of things, whether you use "deterrents" or "deterrent" is what determines if an "is" or "are" is used.
The singular/plural is about if your talking about a bunch of visual deterrents or everything adding up into a singular visual deterrent.
So talking about "locks" as a group gets a singular deterrent and "is". Logically it's that all the locks are one singular visual deterrent rather than each lock being it's own.
Doesn't really matter tho, English is a pretty stupid language.
The fact you used your possessive instead of you're in "if your talking about" pretty much discredits anything you had to say there.
Oh yeah, for sure.
A phone typo immediately let's you know that person doesn't know grammar.
Whilst usually I would agree if you are attempting to be a pedant about grammar you should probably use correct grammar......
Not really being a pedant.
Someone corrected me, and I clarified that whether it's singular or plural is kind of ambiguous which make both correct.
Because like I said, English is stupid. And even native speakers who follow all of its rules can't explain them.
Think about that for a second, we all get over a decade of learning the language, and we're mostly going off gut feeling when we use it. We may know a few rules, but not all the excepttions and rare cases the rule is wrong.
Since someone cared enough to point out the general rule, I explained the rare exception. Because I thought they'd care.