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As...as

Posted: Tue Oct 26, 2004 9:58 pm
by pdh0224
Dear teacher,

Studies have found that each season as many as one high school football player in five suffers concussions, a violent jarring of the brain against the unyielding skull.

Q : I believe the function of "as many as" is an adjective modifying "one, for emphasizing it. If it does not, it is not natural that "suffers" is placed before a plural "many".

What do you think?

Posted: Wed Oct 27, 2004 4:38 am
by Alan
'As many as' serves as a kind of phrasal modifier to 'one (in five)' . It serves to emphasize that 'one' in this context is to be regarded as a high number, since it actually represents 20% of the total.

The sentence subject is thus 'one high school football player', not 'many', hence the singular verb.