Question about use of 's' on decimal places when saying 0.1KG or 0.9KG (for e.g.)

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Kukai
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Question about use of 's' on decimal places when saying 0.1KG or 0.9KG (for e.g.)

Post by Kukai »

Hi!
Was hoping someone could help answer the following question please:

Why do we say use an ‘s’ when we say 0.9kg i.e. “zero point nine kilogramS.”

To add a little more context to the question:
1)We don’t need and therefore don’t use an ‘S’ when saying 1KG as it’s singular.

2)We do need and do use ’S’ when saying e.g. 6kg or 4 kg or 9kg (as they’re plural)

So referring to my original question above about needing to use an ‘S’ when saying “0.9kg”…
What is it that makes it a plural to necessitate the use of an ‘S’?

At first I thought it’s because we’re counting multiplies of 0.1 (e.g. 0.2/0.3/0.4 etc.) but then realized we also say “zero point one kilogramS” for 0.1KG which isn’t (to my mind a plural).

Any thoughts on this appreciated!
Thank you!
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Alan
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Re: Question about use of 's' on decimal places when saying 0.1KG or 0.9KG (for e.g.)

Post by Alan »

Agreed, it seems illogical but in English, when units are measured decimally, anything other than (precisely) 1 is treated as grammatically plural, including even "0.1 kilograms". 'Plural' should therefore be understood to mean "other than 1" rather than necessarily "greater than 1". (Note that this does not apply when fractions are used, e.g. "half a kilo" = 0.5 kilos).
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