Here's one for you grammarians

[desperance]

In the phrase "all manner of", is the word 'manner' singular as it appears, or is it some kind of hidden plural? Does one say "There was all manner of ways", or "There were all manner of ways"?

Comments

[beckyzoole.livejournal.com]

The plural sounds much, much better. I don't know the grammatical reason why, but it does.

[desperance.livejournal.com]

I agree that it sounds better; I just worry that it may not be right ("none of them are coming" sounds better; "none of them is coming" is right. I think).

Also, icon love!!

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

As a general rule, I find that the best way to work with English grammar is to take "what sounds better", and then make an argument for why that is correct.

Our grammatical rules are derived through examination of examples, after all. If you try to impose non-organically developed grammatical rules onto English, you get stupid shit like to never split infinitives, and that prepositions are things you can't end sentences with.