Newspaper headline and subheadline. Is thsi grammaticallly acceptable?

Art's Anxiety Attack: Al unusual nomber of words are headeed to auction in coming weeks.

Shu and I didn't get much sleep last night...and that's made evident by your typos, honey.

I think it should be "number of words is," but I do recall from other posts here that there are some who consider that correct. I suppose it's similar to some considering the use of "their" with a singular subject to be okay. I wouldn't write it that way, though.

Strip out the various words and just leave the article, subject and verb and the phrase would read either:

A number are...

or

A number is...

I'd generally plump for the latter if I were using a singular construction. I would use the former construction if I were speaking of several numbers:

Untold numbers of words are...

But its often a nice distinction.

From the context, I'd say that apart from the unusual number of typos it's meant to be "an unusual number of WORKS".

However to answer the point:

Logically I know that it ought to be

An unusual number of works is...

but there is also no question in my mind that, to me,

An unusual number of works are...

sounds better here, because from the context what is meant is "many works" and although technically RE is correct and the subject is "number" the intended subject is "works".

I'd say that in common usage, in sentences such as this, "are" is probably heard more often than "is".

quote:

An unusual number of works are...

I would recast the phrase to read, "...Unusual numbers of works are...". Then there is no doubts about either what is meant or the grammatical accuracy of the phrase.

Which is of course grammatically fine but doesn't have the right meaning. It isn't a lot of different numbers of works (separate batches perhaps) that are all unusual. It is one single number of works (not specified) which is unusual.

The unusual fact is that such a large number of works is/are up for auction at more or less the same time.

This is always the danger with recasting; that the new version will not have the same meaning as the old one.

A link to the article in question for the purposes of context.

Now I see the context I agree that it needs a plural. There are many works for sale; an unusually large number. I reckon it is not the number that is the subject of the sentence, it is the works - a plural subject.

I think that "An unusually large number" is an adjectival phrase that describes the works.

If the sentence were to be recast as, "...There are many more works than usual up for auction..." - or even as I have written it above - the sense would be much the same and there would be no confusion about the verb needed.

Oh, I hope you got some rest, Shu (he is spending the weekend with CW and her family). I can't believe I hadn't picked up on "works." I think I must have just read the part of the sentence in question. Sorry about that!

Given the context, I agree that "are" sounds better.