Writing Tips 6

Subject-verb agreement

The rule: A singular subject gets a singular verb, a plural subject gets a plural verb

What’s the subject in this sentence? A list of customer accounts has three items.

It’s “list,” even though the verb is right next to a plural noun. So the singular noun gets a singular verb, “has.”

Here’s a tricky one: We have here a list of items that occur/occurs in an error condition.

Is it the list that occurs, or is it the items that occur?

It’s the items!

So—

Be alert for what the subject is! It can make a big difference in what you say.

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Look at the last panel:

Should it be “bite” or “bites”?

I’ll make the correct answer more obvious:

• of those old ladies who bite
• one …who bites

Yes! the correct verb is “bites”! The plural “ladies” goes with the preposition, and the noun clause (who bites) refers to the singular noun, “one.”

The plural is closer, hence the mistake. This error is called “attraction.”

The rule for agreement is that a singular subject gets a singular verb, and plural subject gets a plural verb—even when a differently numbered phrase intervenes. But exceptions exist!

Sometimes a plural can be treated as a singular. In the past I mentioned that some company names, that end in “& Co.” are treated as singulars.

Here’s a sentence (from a Facebook post, so I can’t link to it) in which the writer, Dr. Bill Stillwell, an MD, defines a plural as a singular:

Renal damage, up to 50% of ICU patients was also seen, possibly from the high concentrations of ACE2 receptors found in the kidneys (used by the virus to effect cell entry) and 5-10% of patients required dialysis.

What was seen? Not the patients (plural), but the damage (singular). (Myself, I’d have inserted “in” before “up.”)

Here’s another one, on page 75 of the March 2020 Scientific American. It’s a bit trickier:

Our concepts of how the two and a half pounds of flabby flesh between our ears accomplish learning date to Ivan Pavlov’s classic experiments, where he found that dogs could learn to salivate at the sound of a bell.

The writer is obviously referring to the brain, a single thing, even though he called it a number of pounds of flesh, a plural.

Was he right? “Pounds” is plural, but they don’t act separately (do they?). Feel free to comment in the comments.

“Kind” is singular, “kinds” is plural, right? And “this” and “that” are singular and “these” and “those” are plurals. Right? Right! Then make them agree!

Last panel in the middle row. She gets it wrong.

It’s “those kinds,” Luann! Thank you, Mrs. Clemens, for teaching me this. I learned a lot in sixth grade…

That title sounds like a practice I would disagree with, but a compound subject with a singular verb can be correct! Here’s the rule:

• A compound subject with “and” gets a plural verb.

Here’s an example of getting this wrong. “zone and others” is plural, so the verb should be plural:

Our results provide new insights into how this subduction zone, and possibly others, behaves over geologic timeframes of millions of years.

https://earthsky.org/earth/cascadia-megathrust-fault-earthquake-probability

Here’s the other rule: A compound subject with “or” takes the number of the last item in the subject. If the last item is plural, use a plural verb, if the last item is singular, then use a singular verb.

A correct example:

Anomalous propagation, or AP, is the name given to radar echoes that are not related to precipitation.

https://www.wunderground.com/news/news/news/2019-07-24-traffic-highway-101-california-doppler-radar

Here’s an incorrect example. “rhetoric” is singular, so the verb should be singular:

Administration officials push back on the idea that Trump or his rhetoric have any responsibility to bear, saying the only people responsible for these mass shootings are the people shooting the guns.

https://www.npr.org/2019/08/05/748190808/trump-calls-for-strong-background-checks-following-el-paso-and-dayton-shootings

This is correct; plural second subject, plural verb.

I don’t think most schools or employers are there yet.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2019/08/05/new-ipads-make-strong-back-to-school-appeal-im-still-not-sold

This post first appeared on The Writing Rag.