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Many a girl in this class _____ got high scores in English.

Saw this on elsewhere. To me it seems the blank can be "have" but not "has".

All choices:

  • is
  • are
  • has
  • have

many a girl in this class _____ got high scores in English

ColleenV
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tgkprog
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    It's Many a mickle makes* a muckle,* not *...make a muckle*. That's because "a mickle" and "a girl" are singular nouns. – FumbleFingers Jan 15 '24 at 17:01
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    This is a fairly silly task in verb agreement, because the subject is quaint and and odd. The idiom "many a ..." is pretty rare and folksy, and if your English level is high enough to be learning such idioms, you are probably above grammar tests in verbal agreement. – James K Jan 15 '24 at 23:22
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    The main thing that makes this sound wrong and awkward to me is the word got in this sentence. Remove it and it sounds and feels more natural. – Chris Dodd Jan 16 '24 at 00:29
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    @ChrisDodd An Australian here. Out of interest, would you find "has gotten" more acceptable than "has got"? The former is probably the way I would say it, and changing the tense of the verb to the simple present would sound a little strange (to my Australian ear). – traktor Jan 16 '24 at 02:09
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    Fun fact: the phrase "many a" is often used in American crossword clues to indicate that the answer is singular. A clue like "Many a funny TV show" might have SITCOM as the answer; if the clue were "Many funny TV shows," then SITCOMS would be a possible answer but SITCOM would not. – Tanner Swett Jan 16 '24 at 03:23
  • @ChrisDodd I think "scores" should be singular, unless one girl takes many tests. "has achieved a high score" or "has achieved several high scores". Credit where it is due! – Paul_Pedant Jan 16 '24 at 08:53
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    @traktor - as a Brit, I never find 'gotten' to be appropriate, ever. UK English dropped that usage sometime after America started gaining traction as an English-speaking country, so they kept it & we dropped it. It may be that Australia kept it too, I wasn't aware of that. It generally always sounds 'wrong' to Brits - even if we know why. – DoneWithThis. Jan 16 '24 at 11:35
  • English has two forms for the verb have in English: have and have got. So, here, third person: has got or has. – Lambie Jan 16 '24 at 14:50
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    The got *is simply totally wrong. End of story. Many a girl in this class has high scores in English. Or, Many a girl in this class has gotten high scores in English. Got is simply wrong*. – Fattie Jan 16 '24 at 20:36
  • @traktor As you say has gotten is correct. (Alternately just "has" meaning "they presently, while we speak about it, have ...") The "got" as written is simply a typo. Typical worthless textbook. – Fattie Jan 16 '24 at 20:37

2 Answers2

44

The unusual, but not incorrect 'many a girl' makes it 'has', to agree with the singular.

The more common 'many girls' would, of course, use 'have'.

They threw you a curve-ball to try catch you out.

Many a time they'll try that trick ;)

From comments
This is an older form, not common today, though one I know well as it survives in my native dialect, Yorkshire, northern England. It is still a relatively common usage in the north, often as 'many a time…' or 'many's the time…'. I now live in the south & really never hear it used.
I cannot attest to its commonality outside that area and across the English-speaking world, but it wouldn't surprise me if there was a large percentage of English natives who were not familiar with it at all.

DoneWithThis.
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    +1. What's even weirder is "Many's the time I saw that boat cross the lake." – TimR Jan 15 '24 at 10:27
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    @TimR - yes. I often think of this type of formation being one that's hung on in Yorkshire perhaps longer than elsewhere. It's not notably unusual up there, but now I live in London I don't think I ever hear it. – DoneWithThis. Jan 15 '24 at 10:38
  • Wow and i like to thi k of myself a native English speaker! It's the primary language I speak at work and home! – tgkprog Jan 15 '24 at 13:20
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    I don't think it's common these days. As I mentioned, older constructions such as this like this have hung on in some of the Northern British dialects. I recognise them really because that's my own native dialect. I can't speak for the US at all, but I don't expect to hear them world- or even nation-wide. – DoneWithThis. Jan 15 '24 at 13:26
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    @DoneWithThis.: In AmE, this construction ("many a [noun] [verb]...") is somewhat common in verse, but completely unheard of in prose, at least in my experience. However, I would allow for a somewhat generous interpretation of "verse," to include things like free verse and blank verse, and even "the author is trying to sound fancy but it's not really poetic at all." – Kevin Jan 15 '24 at 21:49
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    Each girl has her own high score, but there are many such cases. – Paul_Pedant Jan 15 '24 at 23:06
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    Perhaps technically that's the answer, but as a native English speaker I certainly wouldn't say it that way - I would use the plural verb. I'd say this is a trick question, unless maybe you're studying archaic terminology. – Piper McCorkle Jan 16 '24 at 02:00
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    @PiperMcCorkle: I was seriously considering writing an answer along the lines of "If you think people should know this construction, teach this construction." It's so oddball that as a native speaker who doesn't use it I don't actually know either. – Joshua Jan 16 '24 at 04:14
  • I can't agree - USAmerican - with "have got" as typical or proper. To me it seems there is no 'correct' answer, but maybe "has" is the least bad if we prefer fitting the subject. – Mike M Jan 16 '24 at 13:51
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    @MikeM - "Many a girl have got" is just plain wrong. This is simple singular/plural agreement. You're falling for the same curveball the OP did. – DoneWithThis. Jan 16 '24 at 14:19
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    I agree with @MikeM. The question is wrong as far as US English is concerned. The sentence should be either "Many a girl in this class has gotten high scores in English" or "Many a girl in this class has received high scores in English" to correctly use the present perfect tense. As structured, this question can have no correct answer.

    Regarding subject-verb agreement, I suspect the trick here is that the subject is "girl", not "many". "Many" is an adjective that answers the adjective question "how many girls?", while "a" is an article that answers the adjective question "which girl?".

     – sadakatsu Jan 16 '24 at 16:11
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    @sadakatsu - the question is not concerned with the correctness of the rest of the sentence, merely the singular/plural agreement. I agree the overall construction is clumsy, but that is not at task. You're overthinking how 'many a girl' simply makes it singular, presumably because you're not used to the construction. If you want to expand your ideas into an answer, go ahead. – DoneWithThis. Jan 16 '24 at 16:17
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    In the American south (where old-ish language tends to survive a bit longer), this construction is sometimes used by the older generations. I don't hear it often used elsewhere. Just my experience as another data point. – automaton Jan 16 '24 at 18:48
  • I've lost my online access to the OED; https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/many_a describes the phrase "many a" as a determiner which, followed by a singular noun, forms a phrase that is also considered singular as the subject of a sentence. I'd be curious if the OED provides a better description of this construction, but it certainly cannot be analyzed in the same was as the adjective "many" on its own. – chepner Jan 16 '24 at 20:07
  • I think a well-known example of the construction is in the lyrics to the song "It's All in the Game". (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gtizr2G_7Bk) – chepner Jan 16 '24 at 20:13
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    Another notable example is "Many a New Day" from Oklahoma: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OrGwxrqzGe4&pp=ygUObWFueSBhIG5ldyBkYXk%3D – jkej Jan 16 '24 at 21:20
  • I usually saw this being used in a poem, to make the rhyming better, due to being able to use singular form instead of plural while referencing a plural entity. – justhalf Jan 17 '24 at 05:34
  • Hello, Canadian English speaker. This construction would not be alien to my ears but it certainly sounds corny/ rustic/ old fashioned. Someone could use it in a humorous context and it wouldn't be inappropriate IMO. – mander Don't reinstate Monica Jan 17 '24 at 20:12
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This is similar to the "every" problem that confuses many people. "Every girl" is singular, and requires a singular verb. "Every girl is..." just as "many a girl has..."

"Many a girl in this class has gotten high scores..." sounds more grammatical to me than "...has got high scores...". Even better, I think, would be "Many a girl in this class has received high scores in English."

See the lyrics to the song "Many a New Day" from Oklahoma! by Richard Rogers for a long list of colloquial "many a..." phrases.

user8356
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    I think "has gotten" vs "has got" is an AmE/BrE distinction. – Especially Lime Jan 17 '24 at 14:37
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    Thanks for the alt explanation. Gotten does sound better – tgkprog Jan 17 '24 at 19:22
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    The connection with "every" just occurred to me as well, but then I came back and saw your answer addressing it. "Nary a ..." is another in the same vein, acting as the complete negation of "every". – chepner Jan 17 '24 at 20:53