Recently, hopes that the European Central Bank will reach a deal to he

Question

Recently, hopes that the European Central Bank will reach a deal to help  Spain and Italy borrow at cheaper rates has nudged financial markets higher .

A. Spain and Italy borrow at cheaper rates has nudged financial markets higher
B. Spain and Italy borrow at cheaper rates have nudged financial markets to higher levels
C. Spain and Italy borrow at cheaper rates has nudged financial markets to higher levels
D. Spain and Italy borrow at cheaper rates nudged financial markets to higher levels
E. Spain and Italy borrow at cheaper rates nudged financial markets higher

EducationAisle · Answer

Recently,  hopes  (that the Europe Central Bank will reach a deal to help  Spain and Italy borrow at cheaper rates)  have  nudged financial markets to higher levels

Notice that  hopes  is the subject here.

manavsaraf001 · Answer

But sir ' hopes' is uncountable noun ' so it should take singular verb ( has)

EducationAisle · Answer

Would you say "India's hopes  was  high" or "India's hopes  were  high"?

While exact set of rules may be difficult to codify, a good way to test whether a noun is truly uncountable is to try making a  plural  out of it, since uncountable nouns generally do not have plural forms. For example, we can figure out that words such as water, sand, sugar, luggage, and furniture are uncountable, since these words do not have any corresponding plural forms (in other words, there is no such English word as waters, sands, sugars, luggages, furnitures etc.).

There may be exceptions to the above rule, but the rule broadly works for the most part.

Since the noun  hopes  is plural for the noun  hope , we should treat  hopes  as a plural noun.

p.s. Our book    EducationAisle Sentence Correction Nirvana    discusses  uncountable and countable nouns . Have attached the corresponding section of the book, for your reference.

ExpertsGlobal5 · Answer

Hello  manavsaraf001 ,

We hope this finds you well.

To provide a bit of clarity here, the word "hope" is uncountable when it is used to refer to the emotion of hope, as emotions cannot logically be said to have multiples.

However, "hope" can also be used as a synonym "a desire" or "a want", as in something that someone wants; in this case, "hope" can also take the plural form "hopes", as it is perfectly logical that multiple things can be wanted.

We hope this helps.
All the best!
Experts' Global Team

Recently, hopes that the European Central Bank will reach a deal to he

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