I want to write:
One cake is good, but 4 {is,are} better!
Which one ("are" or "is") should I use?
Looking at examples online it seems that both are acceptable.
So here are my questions:
The answer depends on the exact wording.
If you say exactly what you wrote, "One cake is good but four is/are better", then the correct answer is "are". There's an implied "cakes" after "four", "four CAKES are better". "Four cakes" is clearly plural, so you should use the plural verb.
But now make a subtle change in wording that doesn't change the meaning at all. "Eating one cake is good, but four is/are better." Now the correct answer is "is". Because again we've elided words, the full meaning is "Eating one cake is good, but eating four cakes is better." Now the subject of the second clause is not "four cakes" but "eating", and "eating is singular. The same would be true if instead of "eating" you said "having" or "buying" or "baking", etc.
I would tend towards is in this case, because to me the underlying meaning of this sentence is "(having) One cake is good, but (having) 4 is better"
Using are here sounds vaguely off to me for that reason.
Grammatically, either may be used. However, the meaning would be different. I'm going to assume you're not intending to describe the quality of the cakes themselves, but rather the fact that you prefer having four over having one. In this case, you should use is.
To make this more clear, consider if we used are. This would mean that the implied word "cakes" is being referred to by "are better", meaning there are "four cakes" which "are better". A potential use of this phrasing that comes to mind is some kind of test, where five cakes are sitting out on a table and someone tells you, "One cake is good, but four are better. Identify the better ones!"
You, however, wished to express that it is the act of having four cakes which is better, not that the four cakes themselves are better. This means that there is some hidden phrasing implied here (as observed in steffishnz's answer), which is "[Having] one cake is good, but [having] four cakes is better". It is the existence of these cakes, or the possession of them, which we are describing as better, rather than the cakes themselves.
I do think it sounds better to say "One cake is good, but four is better" than "One cake is good, but four cakes is better", only because "cakes is" will sound jarring to people since it may appear that you're using "is" to refer to the plural noun "cakes", even though as discussed above, you're truly referring to the existence/possession of those four cakes.
On a related note since I can't comment, it's better to use four than 4. The general convention is that for numbers less than 10, we should write out the number (with some exceptions that I won't go into here).
Both can be correct, or conversely, incorrect. It all depends on whether the sentence is intended to communicate a singular or a plural. While I think the most likely usage would be is, since better refers back to four, and four in this case would be a group (of four cakes), the sentence is ambiguous. As noted, are could also be used, and that would change the implied meaning. Modest changes in the construction would make the intended meaning much clearer (e.g. having four or there are four, etc.).
For example, with the case of is:
Four is better
would imply that the four is being used to describe a group, and thus a singular. So, to expand, you might have something like
Having four is better.
On the other hand, for the case of are:
Four are better
innately refers to a plural, four individual objects (cakes), each one of which is "better". Expanding, you could have:
This cake is good, but four are better.
This immediately implies that there are four cakes available that are "better" than the one referred to. So, writing for better clarity:
This cake is good, but there are four that are better.
For the original instance
One cake is good, but four is better.
Writing for better clarity would be:
One cake is good, but having four is better.
Looking at all of the answers and comments, I find I am siding with steffishnz and TonyK. As they have both emphasized, Saying One cake is good, but four are better could mean you are talking about specific cakes that are better than the supposed one cake.
So, in the original sentence, I interpreted the meaning to mean [Having] one cake is good, but [having] four cakes is better, having being replaced with a different verb as needed (eating, sharing, etc.)
Clearly, this is not the only correct answer, and I also see the other view as well. However, is makes more sense to me.
There are things you (OP) could do to eliminate this lack of clarity in the sentence, such as adding a verb (as shown above), or even just the context of the sentence.
If you are previously talking about specific cakes, it would make more sense (again, in my opinion) to use are.
On the other hand, if you are talking about quantities of cakes (as I interpreted the original sentence to be), I personally recommend is.
If you still are unsure, read (out loud) your sentence and 1 or 2 surrounding sentences, swapping out is and are.
Whichever one seems to fit better is the one you should go with.
TL;DR
Which one is grammatically correct (one? both?)
They are both grammatically correct. Use whichever one seems to fit better.
Which one is most used?
Reading the comments, I think its around a 50/50 split between the 2 options. I think they are both equally valid.
is or are is better. However, I do agree with your sentence corrections, but that is not what OP was asking. In order to give a clear answer, we would need more context than what was provided.
Commented
Aug 1, 2021 at 15:34
Both are correct.
There are three four! four! possible interpretations. There isn’t really any difference in meaning between the first three, and I don’t believe the fourth is plausible, so it’s entirely up to you whether you use “is” or “are”.
The first two have been extensively covered by other answers, but I haven’t seen anyone mention the third except in comments. I’m sure there are style guides out there that insist that using a number (other than one) as a singular noun for a group is bad and shouldn’t be done. The fact is, though, it is done.
The fourth interpretation is different. The versions above all take “better” as comparing the number: “this amount is better than that amount”. But there’s another possibility…
It can’t be “one group of four” as in possibility #3, because comparing the cakes’ quality is partitive—you’re saying each cake, individually, is better than the first one. You are not treating them as a group that is better in quality only when put together.
But again, I don’t think this is plausible. The sentence is ambiguous, but my mind went only to the first interpretation (“it is better to have four cakes”), and I had to have the second (“the quality is better for four of the cakes”) pointed out to me. I know it’s presumptuous of me to think that all, or even most, English speakers would resolve the ambiguity the same way I did. But I do think that. I honestly don’t think most speakers would think you meant the second one, and I think many wouldn’t even consider it.
If you wanted to communicate the second meaning, you would need a construction like “of them”:
One cake is good, but four of them are better.
One of the cakes is good, but four of them are better.
And I still find those odd. I would expect the “good” cake to be clearly identified, not left as a puzzle!
This cake is good, but four of them are better.
The cake you picked is good, but four of the others are better.
And in this situation it must be “are”. I would read this next form as implying “having”, returning it to the first meaning:
One cake is good, but four of them is better.
[Having] one cake is good, but [having] four of them is better.
The number four is grammatically singular, a group of four things is grammatically singular, and four things are grammatically plural.
This sentence is ambiguous, because there’s a missing word in the sentence that the listener is supposed to fill in from context. Personally, I took the sentence to mean, “Four [cakes] are better,” with the word “cakes” omitted for brevity.
However, several other readers interpreted it slightly differently and preferred “is.” They aren’t wrong: another way to fill in the gaps is, “One [of something] is good, but four [of something] is better.” That works grammatically like, “Four is greater than one,” or “Four is equal to two plus two,” which are facts about numbers.
The example sentence itself is ambiguous.
If the cakes are being compared for quality, then one cake is good, but four (others) are better is absolutely correct.
If Billy Bunter is quoted: (eating) one cake is good, but (eating) four is better will also be correct.
So without any other clues from the surrounding text from the story, it depends...
I wouldn't have expected a lot of discussion over this question!
Flipping the sentence, no one says, "Four cakes is better than one." But in the comparison example, I suppose you could get away with saying, "One cake is good, but four is better," because it contains an implied word, 'group'. E.g., "One cake is good, but a group of four is better."
Given the implications of each version of is/are, both should work.
Several answers are wrong, including the one with the most votes.
If you are making a statement about the items themselves, use “are”. If making a statement about the number of items, us “is”.
Correct usages:
“One cake is good, but four is better.” The statement is about the number.
“I ate ten cakes. Your cake is great, but four are better. Five are worse.” The statement is about the cakes themselves.
“For a day of TV, eleven tv shows is bad. One is good, but eleven is bad.” Discussing the number of shows.
“Of the many new tv shows, eleven are worthwhile.” Discussing the shows themselves.
In theory (only in theory), the sentence could be about the cakes themselves, as in a ranking. For it to be a ranking, the op’s sentence would be a truly bizarre statement. Imagine your friend tasting five cakes and saying, “One is good, but four are better.” However, “This cake is good, but four are better.” makes sense. “All five are good.” “One is good, and four are great.” both makes sense. (Those last two are more informative btw than “One is good, but four are better.”). No one would ever say that. There is no context I can imagine where “are” would be correct. The most popular answer was not even wrong for this reason though.
It depends: Are you talking about the cakes, or are you talking about how many of them there are?
With this wording, the subject of the second part is the implied word "cakes," matching the plural verb "are." Grammatically speaking, the word "four" is incidental and could be removed without changing the core subject-verb grammar structure of the sentence.
For the sentence's meaning, you could replace "four" with "these other" or any other appropriate descriptive clause and it would still mean the same thing - whichever cakes it's talking about, those cakes are better.
With this wording, the subject of the second part is the word "four," meaning "the quantity four," which is singular. The implied word "cakes" is grammatically incidental and could be removed without changing the core subject-verb grammar structure of the sentence.
For the sentence's meaning, you could replace "cake" (and the associated implied "cakes") with any other noun, and while it would be talking about a quantity of something different, it would still be saying that a greater quantity is better.
this kind of problem is of course highly context dependant. Consider the following examples:
cake number three uses an artificial sweetener while cake number four uses sugar - "four is better"
or
"an engine can have three cylinders but four are better"
If you are talking about a number of discrete items you should use are. So In the sentence "One cake is good, but 4 {is,are} better!", are fits best.
four would be better