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What would be the right form of to be in the examples below?

Five miles [is/are] a long way to walk.

Preliminary results [is/are] better than no results at all.

Nathan Tuggy
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GrayM
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    Measures of distance (five miles) and time (ten minutes) are somewhat forgiving when it comes to agreement in number, but _results_ is plural and must take the plural form of the verb (_are._) – P. E. Dant Reinstate Monica Sep 19 '16 at 04:54

1 Answers1

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Use standard plural construction with "results are". Use standard singular construction with "is a long ... walk". "A preliminary result is" also standard usage. "The five miles are fraught with danger" uses plural, because the sentence does not cast the total distance into a single unit.

facts machine
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