one plus one equals two. is it grammatically correct?
By chameleon7
@chameleon7 (295)
China
July 15, 2011 3:57am CST
One plus one equals two. do you you think it is a grammatically correct sentence? It has two verbs. if not, what is the correct way to say it?
5 responses
@AgentGulaman (3546)
• Philippines
15 Jul 11
I think one plus one equals two is grammatically correct. It is much the same as "One plus one is equal to two". Both can be considered correct in a sense and can be used interchangeably. But definitely "One plus one is equals to two" would be grammatically wrong. This is based only of what I know but I am no expert in the English language. I only based my English on how good it is to hear!
@TheCatLady (4691)
• Israel
18 Jul 11
That's me. Because I now use another language other than English in my day to day life, I frequently write or speak awkwardly in English. It comes out more frequently in writing than in speaking.
@Shlok369 (33)
• India
19 Jul 11
I’ve had this pet peeve for the longest time. I can’t help but grimace every time I
hear somebody say “ is equals to” instead of “is equal to” or simply “equals”
or even more simply, in some cases, “is.” For the record:
“One plus one is two.” “One plus one equals two.” “One plus one is equal to
two.” Each of the foregoing sentences is correct—grammatically. Don’t ask me
why one plus one = two.
One plus one is equals to two. Now this is just wrong. You might ask, “What
difference does one ‘s’ make?” My friend, in the world of grammar, the ‘s’ wears
a crown.
But why is it grammatically incorrect? Here’s my take on the case.
Is is a linking verb that is in the present singular form. So is the word
seems.
Equals is the present singular form of the verb equal, which happens to
be homonymous with the adjective equal. (I believe this is the root cause
of the boo-boo.) A similar word is content, which can also be used
either as a verb or as an adjective. Contents is of course the present
singular form of the verb.
To is of course a preposition like with.
So basically the phrase “is equals to” is of the erroneous form, “linking verb in
present singular form (ex. seems) + verb in present singular form (ex. contents) +
preposition (ex. with)
@DoctorDidi (7018)
• India
28 Jul 11
No, it is not a grammatically correct sentence. The correct form would be; 'One plus one is equal to two' or 'One plus one makes two'.
@surfer222 (1714)
• Indonesia
15 Jul 11
i think your sentence is actually a math expression, not an english sentence so you can't compare it with how we write in english... english is not my main language but maybe if we express that math expression in english the sentence would be something like 'If you add one with another one the result would be two'
@butterscotsh (1012)
• Philippines
17 Jul 11
I think it is gramatically correct. It doesn't really have two verbs. The only one verb in it is "plus", equals is not really a verb. It's an adverb. It describes "one plus one". "Two" is direct object. I also think "one plus one" is the subject of the sentence and "equals two" is the predicate. LOL. This is confusing.
