Edit 2
After your edit, the question becomes one of whether a group of things can be taken as a collective singular, such as in this question, which asks such things as whether a dozen somethings “is” enough.
The answer is that it can be singular if you are thinking of it as one thing as a whole, just as in:
Twelve miles is much too far for me to walk before lunch.
In that sort of sentence, you get agreement like this:
- A few more games is all I have time for.
- A handful of games is all I have time for.
- A few more miles is all I have time for.
- A handful of miles is all I have time for.
It really just depends on what you’re trying to say, and how you’re trying to say it. If you want to say that five matches is more than you can handle or that three olives is too many for a martini, then yes, sure you can.
But normally plural things take plural agreement — see the ngram below, which shows that a handful of men will usually take plural agreement because men is plural, no matter the status of the a handful of premodifer.
It is only when you logically group them as one thing that they take singular agreement. By doing so, that is what you are conveying.
But perhaps your friend does not like it when the council is decided on something, as opposed to when they are divided. :)
Original Answer
Your friend is right, and you are wrong.
When you have a premodifier like a lot of, a number of, or a handful of preceding the head noun, the verb continues to agree with that head noun, instead of with the notionally singular a lot, a number, a handful, which functions more like a red herring than anything else.
Ok, seriously, these premodifiers are really acting like adjectives, not like prepositional phrases. That means the head noun remains the head noun, and there is no change to agreement:
- People think the same way.
- Several people think the same way.
- Few people think the same way.
- No people think the same way.
- Many people think the same way.
- A lot of people think the same way.
- A number of people think the same way.
- A handful of people think the same way.
As opposed to something like:
- If just one out of all those people thinks the same way as you do, you win.
Edit
Although there is a bit of room for variation here, depending on just what the writer is thinking, there is a clear dominance of the plural continuing to be used after a handful of men in this Google N-Gram chart:
Both are fine, but have slightly different meanings.
When you use the singular:
Social standard compliance
You are referring to compliance with the ethos of the standards, and general compliance with any standards whatever they may be.
When you use the plural
Social standards compliance
The emphasis is placed on the individual standards, and not the abstract idea of a social standard.
There may be many social standards, and by using the plural, standards, you are articulating that you are compliant with every single standard.
The singular version has more of an air of generality about it, and an emphasis on the spirit of the social standard you are complying with.
Best Answer
The first is correct:
It is good and right to say and write, "twos," in a situation like this, as with any number—following all the normal rules of adding "s" to make a noun plural... "fives", "twenties" (y -> i, +es), et cetera.
The apostrophe...
...indicates a possessive, not a plural. That would be a different situation, such as if you were talking about the font the two was written in, "The two's serifs are larger in the Tex Gyre Schola font." Or, in Math, "The two's quotient can only be a one or a two if it is to be a whole number."
Links (Grammarly):