@porsche,

It is interesting that just by adding or eliminating a single letter, you can imply such a different philosophical meaning.

Check out http://www.nationalanthems.us/forum/YaBB.pl?num=1088850876

Some people have used the argument that as the anthem is a poem, the author was possibly using poetic licence. When Patrick Castagne was asked personally if this were so, he was adamant that he did not invoke poetic licence. He said he in fact wrote the “correct” word, finds, but changed it when he was overruled by an education official who was his superior.

Unfortunately, the source URL is not working, so I'm not sure how true/factual this is, but if true, the matter is settled. But then, I suppose we could argue that his "superior" meant the statement to be subjunctive. But then, we could argue that as long as Castagne is credited as the author, we should honor his original intention (unless we also credit his superior as a co-writer.).

Either way, I think we can agree that it's not grammatically incorrect because it's a matter of how we interpret it.

I would vote for "finds". When I searched the Web for "every boy and girl is", I found a quote from Hillary Clinton.

http://www.theamericanview.com/index.php?id=467

every boy and girl is loved and cared for equally, and every family has the hope of a strong and stable future.

But in Merriam-Webster's dictionary of English usage, I found the following:

It is an arguable point whether a phrase like "every boy and girl" is singular or plural.

But this is in a context of trying to avoid sexism.

My argument for using singular is that, if you want to use plural, you should use "all", not "every". Compare the following:

Every boy and girl is wearing a T-shirt.

All boys and girls are wearing T-shirts.

Both say the same thing but place slightly different emphases on how you look at the same fact. The word "every" emphasizes the individuality, and the fact that there are no exceptions. If I just want to communicate the fact that all the kids I saw were wearing T-shirts, I would use "all". (i.e. I may be missing a few who aren't wearing them, but as far as I can see they all seem to be wearing T-shirts.) But, if, for some reason, I'm really impressed by the fact that I couldn't find anyone not wearing a T-shirt, I would use "every".

At this school, every boy and girl is committed to helping the environment.

In this type of statement, you would want to emphasize the individuality. Not only that there are no exceptions, but also that everyone is motivated and committed individually (i.e. Everyone happens to have the same ideal, as opposed to the school having this ideal.). So, it's a matter of style.

This is why I would vote for "finds" in the original example. “Here every creed and race finds an equal place” is making an ideological point. It should emphasize the individuality of "every creed and race". The use of "find" would diminish the point of using "every".

Since "an equal place" is singular also, you might as well make them all agree.

While it may not be grammatically incorrect, I would say "find" is a poor choice stylistically.

I think this is just a bad sentence. Sometimes it's just better to completely recast the whole sentence. For instance:

As this society becomes more internationalized, the students are expected to know more about other countries and to respect cultural differences.

This essentially says the same thing.

Your sentence has a lot of redundant words.

"being globalized" and "opening to the world" are essentially the same thing. You cannot open to the world without being globalized. Or, you cannot globalize your country without opening to the world.

"of this era" is not necessary. You've already said "modern society", so we know you are talking about this era.

"on the basis of broad knowledge of various places of the world"

Why do you need this at all? You've already said "understanding different countries".

It sounds like it was translated from a different language, or you are trying to squeeze a lot of words into it to make it sound more substantial.

@EGKG

You are right. I see that someone has already coined the term "Twitter whore" on Urban Dictionary, and the definition is exactly what I described.

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Twitter%20Whore

I don't think it's incorrect, but it sounds awkward to me because "as of" usually implies that you sampled a moment of time to see a status of something. In other words, I interpret "as of" as "a particular point in time." For instance:

"As of March 14th, 2009, my stock portfolio was worth $123,456."

It's measuring or sampling something at a particular point in time. The reason why "As of yesterday, we had finished three tasks" sounds awkward to me is because "had finished" implies a duration of time, not a moment in time.

Brian,

This deserves to be a post of its own. So, I'll create one.

Brian,

What's wrong with "most"? In fact, I never understood the difference.

Pretty funny.

1. He has many girlfriends, and the car belongs to one of them.

2. He has one girlfriend but she has many cars. And, it's one of those cars she owns.

3. He has many girlfriends, and one of them has many cars, and it's one of her cars.

Are there more?

Funny; I had the same exact problem just yesterday while writing for another blog.

a bunch of 5-year-olds
or
a bunch of 5-year olds
or
a bunch of 5 year-olds
or
a bunch of 5 year olds

Hi Porsche,

I may have. Could you elaborate on that? Am I correct in saying that there were multiple systems of inflection? If so, are you saying that these multiple systems of inflection were part of the one and the only linguistic system? In other words, they didn't come from different linguistic systems.

But then, I guess this becomes a question of what constitutes a "linguistic system".