Even this differs according to context, though: a meteorologist might well be referring to individual inches when describing a quantity of precipitation—precisely rather than poetically—in which case "three inches of snow have fallen as of 3:20 p.m. this afternoon" would be correct
Reposted from
Joshua J. Friedman
Here ’tis (from Theodore Bernstein): “You would not write, ‘Three inches of snow have fallen,’ because you are not thinking of individual inches; you are thinking of a quantity of snow that accumulates to that depth.”
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