I found an example sentence in my grammar book:
“More than one man has been dismissed.”
Do you always treat something the number of which is more than one in this way? Do you never say “More than one man have been dismissed”? Don’t you say “More workers than one were dismissed”?
Should the verb agree with the meaning of the word “one” or the meaning of the phrase “more than one”?
Can more than one be singular?
I don’t know what the specific grammar rule is, but whether referring to ‘one’ of something or ‘more than one’ of something, the operating noun is always going to be singular, so the corresponding verb should also be (third person) singular. The fact that the actual number of workers was greater than one does not affect the grammar. For example: one worker ; more than one worker :
More than one worker was dismissed. or: There was more than one worker dismissed.
one man ; more than one man :
You should never say: “More than one man have been dismissed,” but rather: More than one man has been dismissed.
Also note from above: The number was greater. The number of workers was greater.
Whereas, if the counting number is an amount greater than one, then the operating noun will be plural, so the corresponding verb should also be plural. For example, a dozen workers:
More than a dozen workers were laid off. or: There were more than a dozen workers laid off.
I wouldn’t normally say (or write): More workers than one were dismissed. But the operating noun is plural, so you are correct that the corresponding verb should also be plural: More workers than one were dismissed.
I hope this answers all of your questions.
Thank you for your explanation, Brucenator.
It seems that the verb agrees with the meaning of “one something” instead of the meaning of the phrase “more than one”.
Yes, but when referring to ‘something,’ you should say ‘one of something’ or ‘more than one of something’.
How about this?
“one-something”, or “[one] + [a singular noun]”.
Or, “‘one’ followed by a singular noun”.
The verb agrees with the meaning of “one” followed by a singular noun instead of the meaning of the phrase “more than one”.
If I use “one of”, “somethings” should follow after that with the preceding “the”.
“More than one of the workers were dismissed.”