If you or your child, advisee, or student uses Naviance to guide the college application process, you may find this thread worth reading.https://twitter.com/camulhern/status/1116391143145639938 …
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Sorry. I mean *use*, not *uses*
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Replying to @stevenstrogatz
A string of "or"s like this does not alter the number of the subject nouns in the sentence in which it occurs. In this case, each subject noun is singular, so "uses," the third-person singular form of the verb, is correct.
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Replying to @MathPrinceps @stevenstrogatz
Oops. A correction is, alas, necessary here, because of the initial noun in the string, namely, "you." This noun of course requires the second-person form of the verb. So the string of nouns is inhomogeneous, which means that no single verb form can follow the string.
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Replying to @MathPrinceps
And I am left wondering what the final verdict is: use or uses? cc
@BCDreyer (with apologies for the after hours request)2 replies 0 retweets 1 like -
Replying to @stevenstrogatz @MathPrinceps
The number of the verb in a string of “or”s is determined by the closest noun, so in this case: uses.
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Replying to @BCDreyer @stevenstrogatz
Recourse to authority! A wonderful solution, not available in mathematics.
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Of course the difficulty tends to be that multiple authorities exist, and sometimes disagree. So then one must consult another authority to determine which authority is to prevail.
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Replying to @MathPrinceps @BCDreyer
That’s easy. By the authority vested in me, I hereby proclaim that in all matters of this type,
@BCDreyer prevails. :-)2 replies 0 retweets 2 likes
I cannot help wondering, then, since you assert the authority to veto authorities, why you bothered to consult one. I suspect that we're gradually working our way toward a Russell-Whitehead theory of types here. Dark waters ahead!
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