Comments on: Making a Mountain Out of a Molehill

By: Rebecca

Rebecca — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 21:24:38 +0000

Hi Maeve Maddox

Touche.

I saw that you linked to me, and have corrected the title.

Rebecca (News N Economics)

By: spike1

spike1 — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 10:33:54 +0000

Brad…
We don’t get gophers over here in old blighty.
But we do get moles and that photo in the article was definitely of molehills.

Oh, and they eat earthworms, not plant roots.

By: Stephen Thorn

Stephen Thorn — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 16:51:11 +0000

And, of course, there is the nuclear-age version of that old maxim — What do nuclear bombs do? Make molehills out of mountains. (grin)

By: cameron

cameron — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 14:44:45 +0000

I am assuming it morphed because the “hills” are created by the mole digging “holes.” That’s just a guess on my part, though.

And Brendan, the subject of your phrase is “more,” so the correct expression is “more has passed” not “have.” “Weeks” is merely the object of the preposition “than” and is not part of the subject-verb agreement.

Cheers!

By: Brendan

Brendan — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 14:34:17 +0000

Here is something that bothers me, even though a Google search would say its likely correct:

“more than two weeks has passed”

Shouldn’t it be “have passed”?