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At present rate of exchange, _______ 2$

Which among the three options is correct to fill in the above blank ?

  1. fourteen dozen costs.
  2. fourteen dozens cost.
  3. fourteen dozen cost.

I guess we use singular nouns after cardinal numbers so fourteen dozen should be the correct choice but then will verb agree with fourteen or with dozen i.e. will it be plural (cost) or singular (costs)?

Cardinal
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user212388
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  • What do you mean we use singular nouns after cardinals? You have three options in your question. – Cardinal Jun 22 '17 at 17:45
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    @Cardinal I mean to say fourteen dozen XYZ is correct not fourteen dozens XYZ but ' fourteen dozens of ' XYZ is correct. Am I correct ? – user212388 Jun 22 '17 at 17:53
  • Please [edit] your question to correct your mistake. – P. E. Dant Reinstate Monica Jun 22 '17 at 17:58
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    You may want to see this post: https://ell.stackexchange.com/questions/71408/four-dozen-or-four-dozens/71417#71417 – Cardinal Jun 22 '17 at 17:58
  • You can rule out #2, for a start. Nobody would pluralise *dozens* there. – FumbleFingers Jun 22 '17 at 17:59
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    @FumbleFingers: Not anymore, I think you mean. Pluralizing dozens, hundreds, and other number groups is extremely archaic. – Nathan Tuggy Jun 22 '17 at 20:16
  • This question is related to the "Four dozen" question, but it is not a duplicate. The dozen/dozens choice is addressed in those answers, but i don't see where the cost/costs choice is. – Adam Jun 22 '17 at 20:38
  • @Adam I see your point and I didn't flag this question as a duplicate.
    @ user: Would you tell me more about the context and that "fourteen dozen" describes what? I expect either to see a noun after "fourteen dozen" or to understand a noun from the context.     – Cardinal Jun 22 '17 at 21:59

1 Answers1

-1

According to Oxford Dictionary,

3 dozens [plural] ( informal) a lot of people or things. They arrived in dozens (= in large numbers) .

That means "dozen " can be " plural ". On that note, we can say only your sentence number two [ fourteen dozens cost ] is correct.

dz420
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