Subject-Verb Agreement

Subject-verb agreement is the technical term for the mistake that this article from NPR discusses. Read the whole article; I could hardly have said it better myself.

But since I want to post more than a mere link, here’s the gist:

• The 2016 Republican party platform has a section about homosexuality.
• The first sentence in that section has two nouns near the beginning, “homosexuality,” and “truths.”
• The verb is singular.

The rule of subject-verb agreement says that singular verbs take singular subjects, and plural verbs take plural subjects.

The intent was to use the rest of the sentence to describe truths, but the grammar had it describing homosexuality. Oops.

I think the last sentence in the article is particularly interesting.

Pay attention to your English teacher, kids! And to be really sure, have another pair of eyes look at what you write.