Poll: Several centimetres of snow _____ fallen.

Deen

Snow has fallen. IT has fallen, no matter how many cm's. It's the snow that's fallen, not the centimeters!

MrTrilby

Disagree, Deen. In *this* sentence, it is the cms that have fallen. In the sentence "A lot of snow has fallen", it's the snow.

Trish

Yes, aside from that the word several was used in the sentence.

Gardemarine

It's the centimeters that make up snow, not snow makes up centimeters. Therefore, centimeters is the main object in this sentence. So, centimeters are the ones who have fallen. It's funny, but it's true.

Agnes

No matter how we look at it, its the snow that has fallen not the measure of the snow.

Robert Jones

The question is one of grammar, not one of fact. As a matter of fact, it is the snow, and not the centimetres, which falls. However, grammatically, the subject of the sentence is the plural noun "centimetres", so a plural verb is required.

wangui

snow is an uncountable noun, so the content is taken as an unit

Day

Or we could solve the problem by saying 'Several centimetres of snowflakes have fallen' :-D

But then what would be the point of the poll? lol. Grammar is really interesting!

chris

we all know that snow falls, not centimeters.
but, that is irrelevant.
the prepositional phrase "of snow" is a complement of "centimeters", not the subject of the sentence. "centimeters" is the subject. since it is plural, the verb should be "have".

That's if you want to be pedantic. I use either, personally.