Learn English – Will the word ‘proportion’ take ‘has’ or ‘have’ for singular

singularsingular-vs-pluralsubject-verb-agreement

I have a sentence that goes like

A large proportion of people _______ started giving up on the government.

I know here the missing word—has or have—has got to refer to proportion and not people.
So the right word would be has.

But MS Word prompts up, saying have is right.

Best Answer

Proportion is singular, so have is correct.

Edit: Wait, shoot, that's not right at all. Have is definitely correct...

I think what happens is that a proportion of a plural is still a plural. There's a certain amount of people in a proportion of people.

Sorry for jumping the gun.

Edit 2: To test, a proportion of a cheese wheel is singular, but a proportion of cheese wheels are not. Yes, this works.

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