dürfte ich in diesem Zusammenhang anmerken, dass instance nicht mit Instanz übersetzt werden kann, auch wenn alle Bücher über objektorientierte Programmierung diese Unsitte pflegen. Instance ist eher ein Objekt, ein Exemplar oder sowas in der Richtung (abhängig vom Kontext, bei Dir wohl ein Prozeß)

I would use the plural. 'more than one instances are running ...'. Anyway, I would use the plural also in the German version.

Can't do that, Katharina -- "one instances" sound weird, "instance" has to be singular, "is" therefore too. Don't know exactly why, but you definitely can't use plural verb here. a different example makes it easier, e.g. "More than one of my friends is German." However, I can imagine there are exceptions -- in *spoken* English this sounds OK to me: "More than one of us are not going to be able to make the meeting." I guess one could find several instances of plurals or singular with this construction and see what the pattern is. Anyone with a rule?

@katharina
Auch im Deutschen kann hier nur der Singular stehen.
Die Form "Falls mehr als eine Instanzen ..." tut richtig weh.
Falls es denn der Plural sein sollte, müßte man umformulieren: "Falls mehere Instanzen auf einer Maschine laufen.."

I don't want to be obnoxious but the rule says "The number of the subject determines the number of the verb" (Strunk and White, Elements of Style). And "more than one" does sound plural to me.

Katharina, the rule you are quoting does not apply to such situations. A language is not obliged follow general rules, and there are almost always exceptions.... That is the reason why one needs a reliable Sprachgefühl. I do hope someone can explain it.

Die Lösung liegt darin, dass 'more that one' oder 'mehr als ein(e)', entgegen Katharinas Sprachgefühl, nicht Plural ist.

Wenn "Mehr als X" Subjekt eines Satzes ist, entscheidet der Numerus von X darüber, ob das Prädikat im Singular oder Plural steht.
Das gilt für alle Genera.

Beispiele:

Mehr als ein Student kann vormittags nicht geprüft werden.
Mehr als drei Studenten können vormittags nicht geprüft werden.

Mehr als eine Abbildung passt nicht auf eine DIN A4-Seite.
Mehr als vier Abbildungen passen nicht auf eine DIN A4-Seite.

Mehr als ein Fass Wein liegt hier in keinem Keller.
Mehr als zehn Fässer Wein liegen hier in keinem Keller.

Also: Mehr als ein Beispiel ist überflüssig.
Mehr als drei Beispiele sind überflüssig.

Sorry: 'More THAN one'.

Remember: "more is bettter"

Danke an alle. Bei mehr als ein/more than one also Singular, da sich hier das Verb auf ein/one Subjekt bezieht; bei mehr als mehrere/more than some Plural, da sich das Verb auf mehrere/some Subjekte bezieht.

@Markus
Instanz ist in diesem Fall korrekt, da es sich um Datenbankinstanzen handelt :-)

AGB: nicht ganz! In den Beispielsätzen bezieht sich das Prädikat immer nur auf e i n Subjekt; das S u b s t a n t i v, das das Subjekt bildet, tritt allerdings im Singular oder im Plural auf.

Subjekt = Satzteil;
Substantiv = Wortart.

I would have to say that it should be "more than one are ...". The subject, and thus the verb, is definitely plural (and countable). Compare with "more are ...". I know that every English teacher I ever had would mark my paper full of red if I wrote "more than one is...". On the other hand, it would be ok to use the singular colloquially. I guess I'm in full disagreement with Ghol :) I think the trick here is to ignore the nonessential part of the subject (ie. the comparison) to determine the number. I think this is an instance when the Sprachgefuehl betrays you. Another example would be "none are ...", which is often heard, but incorrect, as "none" is singular (a shortened form of "not one"). In general, though, I wouldn't worry about this, as most people probably don't know which is correct.

Roy, I don't think the comparison is "the nonessential part" of the subject: in German it is the essential part. This is probably not the case in English. What do you consider right: "More than one student is not allowed in", or: "More than one student are not allowed in"?. In German "Mehr als ein Student sind nicht zugelassen" is absolutely wrong!

Concerning your second theme, there is one indefinite pronoun, 'none', than can be either singular or plural; it often doesn't matter whether you use a singular or plural verb - unless something else in the sentence determines its number. Writers generally think of 'none' as meaning 'not any' and will choose a plural verb, as in "None of the engines are working", but when something else makes us regard 'none' as meaning 'not one', we want a singular verb, as in "None of the food is fresh."

Reinhard, I think the first one should be "more than one student are not allowed in". (Anyone have an opinion as to whether "in" can be on the end??) As far as "none" goes, "none of the engines are working" is definitely wrong. In the second case, "food" is plural, but uncountable, thus you use the singular pronoun "none".

Following up myself... I did some looking around. Most of what I found seems to agree with what I said: "none is..." is the "most correct", _but_ it is really up to the speaker, and the plural form is more common these days (following the Principle of Proximity, ie. we tend to use the number of the noun closest to the verb). Word.

Roy, I don't mind if you disagree with me, because someone has to be wrong ;) -- but you really do not have a leg to stand on. You are applying a general rule to a specific situation that is clearly an exception. Now forgive me if I am being a bit hard on you, but you must admit that you are taking a pretty narrow approach to something as dynamic and organic as languag. And it is also fairly unrealistic to say *everyone* should go against their feel for language if someone's rule says they are wrong.
I was thinking about the construction: a fictitious example: "Although the manual specifies that only one window is allowed to be open at a time, I believe that more than one window are allowed to be open simultaneously." That sounds really weird; not only that, every normal native speaker would say it IS wrong.
Another example "More than one visitor *are* allowed in the room at the same time " but "No more than one visitor *is* allowed in the room at the same time". Find some examples from literature or usage to show that you are talking about language as it is used by somebody somewhere, and not some unrealistic prescriptive theory. And while you are about it, please rewrite that sentence that has 'in' at the end, as you know that this is not correct!... Btw I couldn't ;)

@previous comments further up ... but of course you can't say "none of the food is fresh"!! To say "'food' is plural, but uncountable" is an oxymoron, a complete contradiction in terms. You cannot possibly have a plural (i.e. be able to count it) of something that is uncountable!!! So you can't use the singular "none" with it, because it means "not one" and therefore refers to countable things. I also disagree that "none...are" is incorrect. Technically speaking, yes, it is wrong, but language can cope with it perfectly well and it has been almost completely assimilated into the language. I am sure someone must have discovered it already, otherwise it shall hencforth be called the Gholsche Regel: In certain cases a singular subject can have a plural verb, e.g. "none of the engines are working", "none of us are coming to your party", "more than one of my friends is a foreigner somewhere in the world". This rule ©Ghol March 2002

Re: "more than one student are not allowed in"

The problem with rewriting the above sentence is not to figure out where the "in" should go, but that "allowed in" as translation for "zugelassen" is wrong. "Allowed" or "accepted" in this context perfectly suffices. The "in" would only be needed in a sentence like "More than twenty students are not allowed into the room", or "The room is too small, therefore not more than twenty students are allowed." That they are not allowed to be "in" the room is still clear without needing the "in".

I often get confused with subject-verb agreement as well, so when possible I try to rewrite to something like: "Although the manual specifies that only one window is allowed to be open at a time, I believe that more than one window can be open simultaneously." Or "More than one student can not be allowed." Obviously this does not always work, since the meaning might shift slightly in many cases, but more often than not it solves the problem.

@Ekke, I must disagree with your approach. How can you say that the phrase "to be allowed in" is "wrong"? What is really wrong is trying to force the language to fit into rules that forbid prepositions at the end of the sentence. The term "allowed in" is a valid part of the language. Nichts für Ungut, Ekke, and I am speaking generally: I personally find it ridiculous when, for the sake of a silly rule, people say "well, if it doesn't fit the rule you should say it differently" and then go to great lengths to twist the sentence to obey the rule even if it means clouding the meaning!

Great discussion again! Ghol: I agree with you in almost every respect and I understand that my "food-sentence" was wrong. What a pity!
On the other hand: your last example is a bit different from what we had before. In my opinion the question is whether it is correct to say, "More than one friend of mine are foreigners (or: is a foreigner) somewhere in the world." Do you agree?//

What I had understood so far was that for an English speaker "more than one" is always plural, whereas for a German speaker "mehr als ein(e/er)" is singular. Consequently, the correct version of "Mehr als ein Sohn mag seinen Vater nicht" should be, "More than one son dislike their father." I admit I'm at a loss again.//

(Living in LOWER Saxony, I'm just listening to the NDR broadcasting Mendelssohn's beautiful psalm-motet 'I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help.' Ghol: I know you're living in a mountainous area!!)

@Ghol: Maybe I did not formulate my posting properly. When I wrote: "Obviously this does not always work, since the meaning might shift slightly in many cases, but more often than not it solves the problem.", I meant that if it does cloud the meaning, then my approach does not work, but I have often found that it can work without losing the original meaning. It is not about changing something that does not fit the rule, it is about avoiding mistakes when the rule is unclear, and to avoid lenghty discussions with a client who is convinced that he has found a mistake in my translation. If not even a forum of professional translators can agree, explaining it to a client eager to show that he did have an hour of English per week in school and therefore knows the rules can be a rather daunting task! So if I am not sure, and do not positively know whether the rule is vague, I try to find an equally good translation that does not include the troublesome words, and since language is so flexible this is usually not very difficult to achieve.

Where "Allowed in" is concerned: Personally I cannot think of a situation where I would use it, since for me "allowed" already has the implication of "you're in!". To my ears "allowed in" almost sounds the same as "drawing a round circle". Maybe there are cases where allowed cannot work without "in", I just can't think of any. If you have any, please post them, since I always find your examples and postings very informative and have learned a lot from them. Where "in" at the end of the sentence is concerned, you are contradicting yourself, since once you told Roy: "And while you are about it, please rewrite that sentence that has 'in' at the end, as you know that this is not correct!" and then you say: "What is really wrong is trying to force the language to fit into rules that forbid prepositions at the end of the sentence. "

Ekke - I think Ghol was being very sarcastic when he asked Roy to rewrite the sentence with "in" at the end. But he probably doesn't know that sarcasm is the lowest form of wit... :-)
(ouch, noooo - I don't want to get drawn into this)

Ghol, I actually do think I have more than a leg to stand on, as far as grammatical "correctness" goes, but as I wrote, those are not necessarily the rules that are followed, and not necessarily the ones I would always recommend. It seems that we are actually in agreement. I'm very confused where you say "none of the food is fresh" is incorrect. As far as the countable/uncountable, I'll refer you to the earlier thread about that (if you can find it). There was a bit of disagreement about whether uncountable things like air, water, or information are semantically plural or singular (no disagreement that they are grammatically singular). So I'll just stick by saying "food" is uncountable, and thus uses a singular verb. For more fun, look for the discussion covering the English usage of the singular for the United States vs. other languages or weird exceptions like "fifty dollars is a lot of money" (clearly countable and plural).

More than one student are not allowed in, muthafuckaz!!! ;)

@Ekke: I'm a bit confused, too, about "allow in". I know the verb "to allow sb in/out/past" in the German meaning of "jdn. hinein-/hinaus/-vorbeilassen", and "to be allowed in/out/past" in the meaning of "hinein-/hinaus-/vorbeidürfen".

The Dictionary of the English Language (The American Heritage, 4th ed., 2000) has the following entry: "allow: (2) to permit the presence of; e.g. 'No pets are allowed inside."'
I wonder if that really resembles the 'round circle'. I could imagine the following dialogue:
"How did you manage to enter the Vatican gardens?" - "Oh, we were allowed in by a cardinal." Would the answer be possible without 'in'?

None: The Oxford Guide to English Usage 1999 -- the new authoritative guide to English -- says both singular and plural are acceptable. "None of the fountains ever play -- Evelyn Waugh" Collins: "there were none to tell the tale" / "none of it looks edible" /other uses "I am none the wiser" / "He looked none too pleased"

Grovelling APOLOGIES: I must correct my categoric statement about the "none of the food is..." -- you CAN say that. Sorry for the confusion caused, I was thinking of none as strictly meaning "not one" which is wrong!! · · · · · · · · · · · ·> "None" can be used with uncountables too: "none of the water / food / money / coffee / air is....."

As for that other topic with "in": @Ekke: I didn't realise you may not be aware of the usage of "to be allowed in" in common everyday speech: please note that they are perfectly acceptable. · · · · · · · · There are a number of other cases where in ends the sentence: "to allow someone in" / "please come in" / "can you let the cat out?" / "he threw the drunk out" / "please put your clothes back on" / "Polly put the kettle on. It really suited her" -- this is a different kettle of fish from the normal prepositions, where in formal English one is supposed to say "with whom" or "in which" instead of e.g. "he's the bloke I used to share a house with" or "the house which we lived in" respectively.

Here’s a riddle: How can you have more than one and still have only one? The answer: When you are skinning a cat. When a noun phrase contains more than one and a singular noun, the verb is normally singular: There is more than one way to skin a cat. More than one editor is working on that project. More than one field has been planted with oats. 1
When more than one is followed by of and a plural noun, the verb is plural: More than one of the paintings were stolen. More than one of the cottages are for sale. 2
When more than one stands alone, it usually takes a singular verb, but it may take a plural verb if the notion of multiplicity predominates: The operating rooms are all in good order. More than one is (or are) equipped with the latest imaging technology.
>>> http://www.bartleby.com/64/C001/035.html <<<

Some examples from Google, not chosen to prove anything, just the first to appear. Most use singular...: "More than one of three workers who loses their job loses their health insurance as well." >www.cmwf.org/media/releases/lambrew_release11132001.html< //

"More than one of these answers is correct" >www.oneworld.net/penguin/food/food_quiz2.html< //

“Employees with appointments in more than one of the categories below are
counted in the category” >www.dmi.uiuc.edu/cp/glossary02/g100.htm< //

“If more than one of an item is desired” >www.heathsandheathers.com/page3.html< //

“in which more than one of the terms was found” >www.nrc.gov/site-help/search/glossary.html< //

“If more than one of the aforementioned criteria have been entered”
>www.wmm.com/_help/searchhelp.htm< //

“Similarly, more than one of every three jobs in some regions depends” >www.extension.umn.edu/distribution/resourcesandtourism/DB6139.html < //

“If more than one of these ions is required” >www.carlton.paschools.pa.sk.ca/chemical/molemass/frequently_asked_questions.htm < //

“it is not likely that more than one of them was at the” >www.sciam.com/askexpert/biology/biology3.html< //

“If more than one of -exact, -glob, -regexp, and -sorted is specified” >www.sciam.com/askexpert/biology/biology3.html < //

“More than one of us have jumped onto the” >http://www.hardocp.com/articles/hardestof21k <

Grovelling APOLOGIES: I must correct my categoric statement about the "none of the food is..." -- you CAN say that. Sorry for the confusion caused, I was thinking of none as strictly meaning "not one" which is wrong!! · · · · · · · · · · · ·> "None" can be used with uncountables too: "none of the water / food / money / coffee / air is....."

Grovelling APOLOGIES: I must correct my categoric statement about the "none of the food is..." -- you CAN say that. Sorry for the confusion caused, I was thinking of none as strictly meaning "not one" which is wrong!! · · · · · · · · · · · ·> "None" can be used with uncountables too: "none of the water / food / money / coffee / air is....."

None can be either singular or plural, depending on whether the sense is not one, or not any. ¶ "There are many lessons that society can learn from Mother Teresa's life...But none is as powerful as the lessons that Mother Teresa said she learned from the poor." (not one: singular). ¶ "Sexton stressed--several times--that all the meats are farm-raised and USDA-approved and none are endangered." (not any: plural). ¶ As to the original question: If you drop out the comparand "instance" then it seems clear that the subject is plural: "More than one are running" seems right to me. When you add the comparand back, it seems to make it singular, though I can't say why. Roy: would you say, "*more than one car are in the garage"? Doesn't seem right; I would say, "more than one car is in the garage". "*More than one waiter are on duty?" ¶ I would use "is" here, but then, I guess that depends on what the meaning of "is" is.

Seems I had a classic case of being too stuck on one subject and not thinking far enough to other uses of the words...I looked at "allow" in the sense of "accept" and not in the sense of permission to "move in a certain direction" (allow in, out, past...), so I humbly eat my hat. Of course I am aware of sentences like "come in", and probably informally use prepositions "wrongly" in speech constantly, especially since I pay no attention to trying to prevent it when I talk, but as soon as my fingers touch a keyboard my brain switches into "formal" mode... (smile). Thanx for reconnecting the different modes in my brain with the examples... (I love this forum, never a day passes without learning!)

Ooh, this is getting extremely philosophical...What the meaning of "is" is? But I like that sentence, it is good for confusing anyone that might contradict one's plural/singular usage...One can simply put on a haughty look and say:"Of course, in some cases your point might apply, but it all depends on what the meaning of "is" is..."

Similar situation, I just wrote "almost one in four companies estimate that..." automatically in the plural. Should it be singular maybe...

Just guessing...I would go for plural, since "one in four companies" means 25% of all companies and is therefore clearly plural, but I don't know if some rule indicates that the "one" should be used as indicator...

if you write "one company in four" you would probably use "estimates", as it is the same as "one company ... estimates". But then again, it is open to debate!

AW--no haughtinesss here--sorry you missed the point of the quote "meaning of 'is' is..". ¶ That is a direct quote from President Clinton's deposition in the Monica Lewinsky scandal, and I was poking fun at it. Sorry if the reference was too obscure.

Now that you mention it, Peter, I vaguely remember all the laughter that statement of Clinton caused...nevertheless, I'll remember it for future reference, it so nicely sidetracks any debate one might be trying to get out of! :-)