From: "Gary Britt" 

I'm not sure I agree.  You may well be correct, but doesn't sound right to
me.  If I had written 1 adult in 20 in the USA is illiterate that seems
correct to me, but when the adults is plural doesn't sound right even
though the 1 is singular in both situations.  It just seems to me that in
the first we are talking about a group of adults and in the second we are
talking about a single adult within a group.  You may be right, I wouldn't
bet money on it, but I wouldn't change how I wrote it.  I also refuse to
put quotes that go around the last word of sentence (when only that last
word is a quote) outside the . punctuation mark.  It doesn't make sense to
do that just because typesetters 100 years ago found it convenient.

Gary


"Gregg N"  wrote in message
news:43a233ec$1{at}w3.nls.net...
> Gary Britt wrote:
> > 1 in 20 adults in USA are illiterate, despite being able to fill out a
lotto
> >
>
> One in twenty adults in the USA *is* illiterate.
>
> Gregg 

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