Booher's Rules of Business Grammar - Dianna Booher 2009

Total ’em up
Verbosity about verbs: The big blunders

VERBS WITH TIME, MONEY, QUANTITIES, FRACTIONS, AND PERCENTAGES

The common mistake with expressions such as 20 dollars or 40 hours is to think of them slipping through your hand or ticking by one by one. While they do disappear fast, in most situations, consider these expressions to be one total amount.

When thought of as a single unit, expressions of time, money, and quantity take a singular verb.

Twenty gallons is all my gas tank holds.

Forty hours is now considered a short workweek for the typical company.

Twenty-two percent represents a small portion of the voting population.

Six acres was all that he inherited from his parents.

Memory tip

In math, you first learn to add numbers. In English, you do the same thing: One composite number (a total number of hours, dollars, miles, or whatever) expressed as a single total gets a singular verb.