Borderline shmorderline... :) This is a perfectly straighforward case of "drop the prepositional phrase and make what's left over agree." I've trained myself to have an ear for such things, as has anyone else who cares about competent grammar. "Was" is unquestionably the right choice.

Blend is correct in that pronunciation varies from country to country and even within countries. In my own speech (a very pure "baseline American" accent, according to a linguist I once dated) and in the speech of the Texans I live among, there is no difference between the two words at all.

it would if there WAS an "L" sound in "halving," which there is not.

Then there's this I just found: http://rec-puzzles.org/new/sol.pl/language/english/pronunciation/breakfast

A few of my off-the-cuff solutions were wrong. (who is Beaverbrooks?)

lessee.... the ones that spring right out at me are aphorism, beaver brooks, effervescence, age for pension, hell-for-leather, "O for the wings of a dove" is a Bible quote (think "I wish I had the wings of a dove"), queue (line up) for food, as for you, vive la France, eggs for breakfast, "why, for God's sake?", zephyr winds. Have half a clue for C. Can't make out D, I, J, K, R, or U. If "P for relief" is bathroom humor, then I get it too, else not.

Why does it do that??!?! The information given above as "colon..." was cut off; the real name was "colonsemi.html."

Hey, I used a colon and a semicolon in my posts. Hoo-raw, as they say around here (that would be Texas).

I can't improve upon the clear advice given here: http://www.emory.edu/ENGLISH/WC/colonsemi.html

A quick/general reference on pronunciation is here: http://www.faqs.org/faqs/classics-faq/

I think that if you pick up most recent translations (intended for college reading) of the Classical authors in which you are interested, you'll usually find a pronunciation guide somewhere toward the back.

A very large dictionary may also give the pronunciations. I've found the American Heritage Dictionary to be, despite its name, like a brief encyclopedia in its coverage of people and place names.

The singular form (ex. "thread") is generally preferred but the plural form (ex. "threads") is not wrong. Sometimes it depends on context.

When I worked in a fabric store, a customer might ask me, "What kind of thread do you stock?" In this case we would be thinking of thread as a unified category.

Now that I am working for an engineering company making cylindrical oil well components that screw together end to end, a customer could ask me, "What kind of threads do you stock?" In this case we would be thinking of the different types of screw threads that would be cut into the ends of the components.

In all cases it's considered more correct to use "type of" or "types of" instead of "kind of" or "kinds of."

Longer in duration, I think the previous poster meant. I have the same feeling. Still, the context would primarily decide this one. I would avoid it if I could... perhaps recasting as "dividing in half."