Pedants' Paradise

[Rover_KE]

'Thank you very much indeed' may be fine to say to somebody who's paid off your mortgage or donated you a kidney, but it's distinctly OTT to say to a well-paid colleague who's simply read out the answers to a quiz question or the news headlines on the radio..

[Pulcinella]

Hmmm: I'd still go for the plural paintings (since more than one, and it's the noun closest to the verb) taking the plural verb, even for example with 'one tenth of the paintings are blue, another tenth are green...'

If there's only one painting, then maybe one tenth of it is green and another is blue.

But I don't think we're in real disagreement.

[french frank]

I'd see it a bit differently.

If only one is accounted for, then fine.
'Less than/fewer than' is much more likely to be more than one, so the plural 'are accounted for' works for me.

I used the word 'classically' (for which read 'does not necessarily apply nowadays') to indicate that 'less than' is not at all likely to be more than one. Because if it involves more than one it's 'fewer than'. Less cake, fewer cakes. Since there are 46 'possible' paintings thought to have been completed, even one of them would be 'fewer' than 46.

For interest, this is the paragraph preceding the one I quoted previously:

"Aptly, though, for an exhibition showcasing the work of an artist who languished forgotten for so long, the pictures that aren’t on display make just as much of an impact as those that are. Kit in the Glass with Nancy and Sammy is just one of a series of their mother’s paintings of which today we have only photographic evidence. The whereabouts of the originals is currently unknown. Lost, we hope, rather than destroyed."

For the record, the artist was Mabel Pryde Nicholson, wife of the portrait painter William Nichoson and mother of Ben Nicholson.

https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/...holson-om-1702

[AuntDaisy]

A bit on the lines of the singular case of social media: an article I was reading today stated: “Indeed, less than half of the possible 46 paintings that Mabel is thought to have completed are currently accounted for…”

This seems to want it both ways. Either “Fewer than half […] are accounted for” or “Less than half […] is accounted for”. Classically, since half of 46 is 23, it would be ‘fewer are’ though I wouldn’t quibble over ‘Less than one/a half is’ since logically less than one half might be one quarter or one eighth, hence requiring a singular verb (percentages are a different matter).

A difference between this and examples with ‘media’ is that one can have 46 paintings or one painting, the equivalent being '46 media or one medium', rather than one media (or mutatis mutandis ‘46 mediums and one medium’).

Perhaps Mabel only partially completed a painting or chopped part of it off? You could then use non-integer Mathematics to enumerate them

I'm guessing this on The Times (& behind a paywall), in which case the headline quote "‘She bust up conventions’" makes me wince...

[Pulcinella]

A bit on the lines of the singular case of social media: an article I was reading today stated: “Indeed, less than half of the possible 46 paintings that Mabel is thought to have completed are currently accounted for…”

This seems to want it both ways. Either “Fewer than half […] are accounted for” or “Less than half […] is accounted for”. Classically, since half of 46 is 23, it would be ‘fewer are’ though I wouldn’t quibble over ‘Less than one/a half is’ since logically less than one half might be one quarter or one eighth, hence requiring a singular verb (percentages are a different matter).

A difference between this and examples with ‘media’ is that one can have 46 paintings or one painting, the equivalent being '46 media or one medium', rather than one media (or mutatis mutandis ‘46 mediums and one medium’).

I'd see it a bit differently.

If only one is accounted for, then fine.
'Less than/fewer than' is much more likely to be more than one, so the plural 'are accounted for' works for me.