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I would like to know whether or not "95% of timelines is met" should actually be "95% of timelines are met" because "timelines" is plural?

Michael Xu
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1 Answers1

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The correct verb is are.

From the Yale Graduate School Writing Center's Online Tutorial comes the following (sorry, I do not yet know how to provide a hyperlink by simply saying "check this out"):

Subject-Verb Agreement:

2) With fractions, percentages, amounts and distances a singular verb is used when they are not followed by an of-phrase. Ex: $7.50 is the minimum wage. Five miles is an average distance for me to run.

3) When an of-phrase follows a percentage, distance, fraction, or amount, the verb agrees with the noun closest to the verb. Ex: Half of the tables are occupied. 21% of the population is poor. 21% of the books are paperback. [emphasis is mine]

By the way, as prestigious as the "Yale Graduate School Writing Center" may be, even it confuses percentage with percent. A percentage is a specific amount or number of things (e.g., $12.06, or 18 shares, or 62 points, etc.), whereas a percent is a rate (e.g., 42 percent, or 42/100ths, or point/dot 42) that you use to calculate, or to arrive at, a specific amount or number of dollars, shares, points, etc. For example,

Question: "What is my share of an estate worth $6.6M if it is split three ways?" Answer: The rate/percent at which you calculate your share is 33.33 percent (or .3333); your percentage/share is $2.2M.

Also, at the beginning of a sentence, the numeral and the percent sign should be written out: "Twenty-seven percent of all bagels are plain" (not "27% of all bagels are plain").

rhetorician
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    The OED's first (oldest) definition for "percentage" defines it as "A rate, number or proportion in each hundred; a quantity or amount reckoned as so many hundredth parts of another, esp. of that regarded as the whole." Biomedical Editor says "The rule for using percent and percentage is straightforward. The word percent (or the symbol %) accompanies a specific number, whereas the more general word percentage is used without a number." What is the basis of your statement that "A percentage is a specific amount or number of things"? – herisson Jun 28 '17 at 19:14
  • My basis is something I was taught years ago which made eminently good sense to me; namely, that a percent is a rate, and the percentage is the amount which results from multiplying the rate and some base number. For example, if I invest a thousand bucks in a certificate of deposit in hopes of earning six percent interest within a year's time, the six thou is the BASE; the RATE of return is six percent; and the PERCENTAGE is the amount of interest I accrued (in this instance, 60 bucks). That's how at least some mathematicians look at it. Grammar and mathematics can sometimes be at odds. – rhetorician Jun 28 '17 at 21:33
  • Why does it make sense to you? Do you just mean that you like being able to distinguish the words in this way? I don't see any feature of the way these words are constructed that suggests this exact difference in meaning. If you can cite a source that describes that this is how at least some mathematicians use the word, that would be great. Unfortunately, people are sometimes taught distinctions that are not widely observed, but that are personal pet peeves of the teacher. – herisson Jun 28 '17 at 21:37
  • Looking at it now, to me that last example in your comment seems better than the explanation in the main post. To me, it seems like the situation is like this. As Biomedical Editor says, "percent" is used with (specifically, after) a specific number indicating the proportion out of a hundred; we don't use "percentage" in this context ("22 percent", not "*22 percentage"). As you say, "percentage" is more or less synonymous with "amount" (e.g. "a large percentage of" ~= "a large amount of"); although examples can be found of usage like "a large percent of", this is clearly much less preferred. – herisson Jun 28 '17 at 21:46
  • However, there seems to be another use of "percentage" that you don't recognize as valid, but that most other sources that I can find do: in the OED's words "a quantity or amount reckoned as so many hundredth parts of another". That is, I don't currently see a basis for objecting to sentences like "The percentage of students who passed was 80%" rather than "The percentage of students who passed was 20" (in fact, the latter sounds very odd to me!). – herisson Jun 28 '17 at 21:51
  • As august and trusted a source of information as the OED may be, it is not a mathematics textbook. I'm embarrassed to say that I learned to distinguish P, B, & R by reading a math textbook more years ago than I care to admit. If I could give you a legitimate citation, I would. If I had the time to invest, which I don't, I'd even do a little research on line to see if mathematicians still distinguish between percent and percentage. Again, math and grammar can legitimately be at odds. Moreover, "sounding odd" does not necessarily equate to "being wrong." Agreed? – rhetorician Jun 28 '17 at 22:32