About the article AN.

[hoangkha]

Hi! I have seen the following sentences.
1- Worldwide, an estimated 1.2 million people are killed in road crashes each year and as many as 50 million are injured.
WHO | World report on road traffic injury prevention

2- There are an estimated 500,000 Black Churches in America, and over five million
unregistered voters inside those churches.
African-American Clergy running faith-based campaign to register 1 million voters by Easter
I am wondering why the article AN is used with plural nouns in the above bold phrases . Help, please.

 

[billmcd]

Hi! I have seen the following sentences.
1- Worldwide, an estimated 1.2 million people are killed in road crashes each year and as many as 50 million are injured.
WHO | World report on road traffic injury prevention

2- There are an estimated 500,000 Black Churches in America, and over five million
unregistered voters inside those churches.
African-American Clergy running faith-based campaign to register 1 million voters by Easter
I am wondering why the article AN is used with plural nouns in the above bold phrases . Help, please.

Because it precedes "estimated".

 

[hoangkha]

Because it precedes "estimated".

Thank you. I have already known. My problem is that why the article AN is used with plural nouns - people and churches. I don't understand.

 

[meskete]

The choice of "an" is a result of "thousand" and "million", and these are singular nouns.

 

[emsr2d2]

There are a thousand people in the theatre.
There were a million dogs there.
We have a hundred cats.

There are an estimated thousand people in the theatre.
There were an estimated million dogs there.
We have an estimated hundred cats.

 

[billmcd]

Thank you. I have already known. My problem is that why the article AN is used with plural nouns - people and churches. I don't understand.

In your examples the use of "an" is not based upon the nouns "people" and "churches". It is based on preceding the adjective "estimated". If the sentence read, "Worldwide, 1.2 million people are killed.....", there would be no article.

 

[emsr2d2]

"an estimated three thousand people" = an amount/a number of people which is estimated to be three thousand.
The number (singular) of people is estimated to be three thousand.

 

[probus]

"an" is used, as opposed to "a", whenever the following word, whether adjective or noun, begins with a vowel. This is one of the few examples of euphony in English and does not depend on the number of the noun.

 

[hoangkha]

Thanks for all your help.
So can I write it like this?
2- There is an estimate of 500,000 Black Churches in America, and over five million
unregistered voters inside those churches.

 

[Raymott]

Thanks for all your help.
So can I write it like this?
2- There is an estimate of 500,000 Black Churches in America, and over five million
unregistered voters inside those churches.

You could but that doesn't sound natural. It's grammatical though.