Should I say, for example, '1 of 1 son or 3 daughters is tall' to say I have 4 children and a son is tall
('of' doesn't indicate a part of a whole but amount)
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Don't try and pack multiple ideas in one clause. Here you telling us the number of children in your family AND the height of your son. Those are two different ideas. So communicate them in two sentences.
I have one son and three daughters. My son is tall.
This follows the "end weight" principle of longer phrases at the end of sentences.
You can say
One of my four children is tall.
But don't try to overload the "four children" part. Note that I prefer two write small numbers as words. Don't say
*One of my one son and three daughters is tall *
Because it is confusing, it doesn't follow the "end weight" principle.
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I understand what you said, but I just want to know grammatical correctness... – fanofyours Jan 11 at 7:34
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Plus, '1 of 1 son or 3 daughters is tall' means 3 daughters are tall? I mean proximity agreements, the closest thing is '1 son.' – fanofyours Jan 11 at 8:03
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Its not about "proximity agreements" it is just confusing. I would parse it as "Either one of my one son is tall, or all of my three daughters are tall" but that is so weird to say that I would assume that you meant something else and had made a mistake. It is grammatical but the implied meaning is so strange that it is more likely to be a mistake than to be understoood as correct – James K Jan 11 at 8:08
