Question posted by Forum member Benedict in my Personal Box in the Forum (June 1, 2019): Hi Sir Joe,
I would like to ask which of the following is grammatically correct
1. “Here are the soft copies of the documentation sheets.”
or
2. “Here are the soft copy of the documentation sheets.”
There are 3 different documentation sheets and I was asked to send 1 soft copy of each documentation sheet.
Thank you very much.
Best regards,
Benedict
My reply to Benedict:You said that there are 3 different documentation sheets and you were asked to send 1 soft copy of each documentation sheet.
The grammatically correct and numerically precise answer to that message--one that reflects the singular aspect of only one soft copy of each of the documentation sheets--is the following statement:
“As you requested, here is
one soft copy of each of the three documentation sheets.”
Sentence #1 that you presented--“Here are the soft copies of the documentation sheets”--is grammatically aboveboard but is numerically fuzzy and imprecise about the number of copies of the 3 documentation sheets being sent.
Sentence #2--“Here
are the soft copy of the documentation sheets”--is grammatically wrong for using the plural “are” for only one soft copy when there are actually a total of 3 soft copies--one for each of the 3 documentation sheets. The pivotal operative word missing in Sentence #2, as we can see from the grammatically correct and numerically precise answer I provided above, is “each.”
