What is the difference between these two almost identical sentences? [closed]

There are even numbers of good and bad things.

There are an even number of good and bad things.

What is the difference?

Solution 1:

There are even numbers of good and bad things.

That implies, to me, that there are two sets - whether the sets are composed jointly or separately of (a) good, (b) bad is unclear - and that both sets are composed of an even number of contents.

There are an even number of good and bad things.

That implies, to me, that there is one set, composed of good and bad things, and that the number of them, in total, is even, but...

I cannot agree with the comments above that there is no difference in meaning. The second sentence, without the 'an' would read:

There are even number of good and bad things.

The lack of concord between verb and subject makes this meaningless.

It does, however, raise the point that the use of 'number' in the singular and 'numbers' in the plural in the above examples is ambiguous.

You could get around it by rephrasing to:

There is an even number of good and bad things

(One set, mixed)

Or

There are even numbers of good things and (of) bad things

(Two sets)

The question then arises whether you are implying equality and balance in your use of even (as in 'We're even now' in a tit-for-tat scenario) or whether you simply mean 'not odd'.