Introduction
Collective Nouns
Indefinite Pronouns
Walk This Way
Agree to Disagree
Sentence Agreement
Introduction
Here you learn how to match subjects and verbs, pronouns and antecedents, and maybe even a few outfits. You find out how agreement works with collective nouns and indefinite pronouns, too. Agreement is a biggie, because it occurs at least once a sentence.
Anyone Got a Match?
Agreement means that sentence parts match. Subjects must agree with verbs and pronouns must agree with antecedents. Otherwise, your sentences will sound awkward and jarring, like yellow teeth with a red tie.
The basic rule of sentence agreement is really quite simple:
A subject must agree with its verb in number. (Number means amount. The number can be singular—one—or plural—more than one.) Here's how it works.
Singular Subjects and Verbs
The following guidelines make it easy to match singular subjects and verbs.
1. A singular subject takes a singular verb. For example:
o He who hesitates is probably right.
o The singular subject he agrees with the singular verb is.
o Isaac Asimov was the only author to have a book in every Dewey Decimal System category.
o The singular subject Isaac Asimov requires the singular verb was.
2. Plural subjects that function as a single unit take a singular verb. For instance:
o Spaghetti and meatballs is my favorite dish.
o The singular subject spaghetti and meatballs agrees with the singular verb is.
o Ham and eggs was the breakfast of champions in the 1950s.
o The singular subject ham and eggs agrees with the singular verb was.
3. Titles are always singular. It doesn't matter how long the title is, what it names, or whether or not it sounds plural. As a result, a title always takes a singular verb. Here are two examples:
o Moby Dick was a whale of a tale.
o The singular title Moby Dick agrees with the singular verb was.
o The Valachi Papers is a good read.
o The singular title The Valachi Papers agrees with the singular verb is—even though the title appears plural, it is singular. That's because all titles are singular.
4. Singular subjects connected by either/or, neither/nor, and not only/but also require a singular verb. That's because the connecting words show that you are choosing only one item.
o Either the witness or the defendant was lying.
o Only one person is lying: the witness or the defendant. Therefore, the subject is singular. And the singular subject (the witness or the defendant) matches the singular verb (was).
Plural Subjects and Verbs
Matching plural subjects and verbs is a snap with these simple guidelines: Here's the #1 rule:
1. A plural subject takes a plural verb.
o The rejected New Mexico state motto: Lizards make excellent pets.
o The plural subject lizards matches the plural verb make.
o Mosquitoes are attracted to blue more than any other color.
o The plural subject mosquitoes matches the plural verb are.
o Think of the conjunction and as a plus sign. Whether the parts of the subject joined by and are singular or plural (or both), they all add up to a plural subject and so require a plural verb.
o Anwar and Hosni going to the movies.
o The plural subject Anwar and Hosni agrees with the plural verb are.
o Teddy Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln were great presidents.
o The plural subject Teddy Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln agrees with the plural verb were.
2. If the subject is made up of two or more nouns or pronouns connected by or, nor, not only, or but also, the verb agrees with the noun closest to the pronoun.
o Neither the contract nor the page proofs are arriving in time to meet the deadline.
o The plural subject proofs agrees with the plural verb are.
o Neither the page proofs nor the contract is arriving in time to meet the deadline.
o The singular subject contract agrees with the singular verb is.
3. Ignore words or phrases that come between the subject and the verb. A phrase or clause that comes between a subject and its verb does not affect subject-verb agreement.
o The purpose of working out for several hours is to get fit and buff.
o The singular subject purpose matches the singular verb is. Ignore the intervening prepositional phrase “of working out for several hours.”
o Downward mobility—a quick ride down the social and economic ladders—poses a serious problem.
o The singular subject downward mobility agrees with the singular verb poses. Ignore the intervening appositive “a quick ride down the social and economic ladders.”
Seventh-Inning Stretch
Take a second to get these first few rules down pat. Circle the correct verb in each sentence. Feel free to look back at the rules you just read.
1. A typical Radio City Music Hall Rockette (is/are) between 5 feet and 5 feet 9 inches tall.
2. An apple or a pear (contains/contain) about 75 calories each.
3. The supply of stupid drivers (increase/increases) during holidays.
4. Residents of our country (spend/spends) more than $31 billion a year on fast food.
5. Bill Cosby's cartoon characters (includes/include) Fat Albert and Weird Harold.
6. In winter, camels (is/are) able to go without water for eight weeks.
7. Contrary to popular thinking, camels (does/do) not store water in their humps.
8. The average person (breathes/breathe) 7 quarts of air per minute.
9. Camels also (urinates/urinate) very little, compared to other animals of roughly the same size.
10. Every year the Washington Monument (sink/sinks) an average of 6 inches into the ground.
| Answers | |
| 1. is | 6. are |
| 2. contains | 7. do |
| 3. increases | 8. breathes |
| 4. spend | 9. urinate |
| 5. include | 10. sinks |
Excerpted from The Complete Idiot's Guide to Grammar and Style © 2003 by Laurie E. Rozakis, Ph.D.. All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. Used by arrangement with Alpha Books, a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
Collective Nouns
Collective nouns are singular in form but plural in sense. Here are some examples of collective nouns:
| assembly | committee | faculty | herd |
| audience | crew | family | jury |
| class | crowd | flock | team |
1. Singular collective nouns
o Singular collective nouns include molasses (one kind of syrup) and chicken pox (one kind of disease). Other examples include measles, civics, social studies, mumps, news, cast, social studies, economics, and mathematics.
o The play's cast is rehearsing for today's show.
o The singular subject cast takes the singular verb is. The members of the cast are functioning as a single unit.
o The jury returns a unanimous verdict.
o The singular subject jury requires the singular verb returns; the members of the jury are working together as one unit.
2. Plural collective nouns
You Could Look It Up
A collective noun names a group of people or things. Examples of collective nouns include class, committee, flock, herd, team, audience, assembly, team, club, and so on.
o A collective noun is treated as plural when the group it names is considered to be made up of individuals. Because members of the group can act on their own, the word is considered plural.
o The play's cast are rehearsing their lines.
o The plural subject cast requires the plural verb are because the members of the cast are functioning as individual people doing separate things.
o The jury often have different reactions to the evidence they hear.
o The plural subject jury requires the plural verb have because the members of the jury are being considered as individuals.
Indefinite Pronouns
Indefinite pronouns, like collective nouns, can be singular or plural, depending on how they are used in a sentence. Singular indefinite pronouns take a singular verb; plural indefinite pronouns take a plural verb. Here are some guidelines to follow:
· Indefinite pronouns that end in -one are always singular. These words include anyone, everyone, someone, and one.
· Indefinite pronouns that end in -body are always singular. These words include anybody, somebody, nobody.
· The indefinite pronouns both, few, many, others, and several are always plural.
You Could Look It Up
Indefinite pronouns refer to people, places, objects, or things without pointing to a specific one. See Parts of Speech for a complete description of indefinite pronouns.
· The indefinite pronouns all, any, more, most, none, and some can be singular or plural, depending on how they are used.
· Flag this chart for ready reference.
| Indefinite Pronouns | ||
| Singular | Plural | Singular or Plural |
| another | both | all |
| anyone | few | any |
| each | many | more |
| everyone | others | most |
| everybody | several | none |
| everything | some | |
| much | ||
| nobody | ||
| nothing | ||
| other | ||
| someone | ||
| anybody | ||
| anything | ||
| either | ||
| little | ||
| neither | ||
| no one | ||
| one | ||
| somebody | ||
| something | ||
The indefinite pronoun many a is always singular, as in “Many a person is sick and tired of eating sautéed antelope on melba toast.”
· Check out these examples:
· One of the Elvis impersonators is missing.
· The singular subject one requires the singular verb is.
· Both of the Elvis impersonators are missing, thank goodness.
Danger, Will Robinson
British English follows the same rules of agreement, but there are subtle differences in usage. For example, our neighbors across the pond consider the words company and government plural rather than singular nouns.
· The plural subject both requires the plural verb are.
· All the sautéed rattlesnake was devoured.
· The singular subject all requires the singular verb was.
· All the seats were occupied.
· The plural subject all requires the plural verb were.
The Pause That Refreshes
Circle the correct verb in each sentence.
1. Economics (depends/depend) heavily on mathematics.
2. The light at the end of the tunnel (are/is) the headlight of an approaching train.
3. News of a layoff (causes/cause) many people to get worried.
4. Millions of Americans watched the high-speed chase and most (was/were) mesmerized by the event.
5. Some people believe that TV rots your brain; others, in contrast, (believes/believe) that TV can teach us important social lessons.
6. Both of those cities (were/was) on my vacation route.
7. The commuters wait at the bus stop. A few (sleep/sleeps) standing up.
8. One of our satellites (is/are) lost in space.
9. The supply of beta-endorphins in the brain (is/are) increased during exercise.
10. Too many onions in a stew often (causes/cause) an upset stomach.
| Answers | |
| 1. depends | 6. were |
| 2. is | 7. sleep |
| 3. causes | 8. is |
| 4. were | 9. is |
| 5. believe | 10. cause |
In many cases, a prepositional phrase intervenes between the subject and the verb. See Parts of Speech for a review of prepositional phrases.
Excerpted from The Complete Idiot's Guide to Grammar and Style © 2003 by Laurie E. Rozakis, Ph.D.. All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. Used by arrangement with Alpha Books, a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
To order this book direct from the publisher, visit the Penguin USA website or call 1-800-253-6476. You can also purchase this book at Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble.
Walk This Way
Now you know the main rules of agreement, so the rest of this business must be a piece of cake. Not so fast. Follow these three steps to check whether subjects and verbs in your sentences really agree:
1. Find the sentence's subject.
2. Figure out if the subject is singular or plural.
3. Select the appropriate verb form to match the form of the subject.
Quoth the Maven
The words there or here at the beginning of a sentence often signal inverted word order.
Here's where the problems occur:
1. Figuring out what is the subject.
2. Figuring out if the subject is singular or plural.
3. Selecting the appropriate verb form to match the form of the subject.
Let's look at each step in the process.
Strictly Speaking
Remember that a predicate nominative is a noun or pronoun that follows a linking verb. It renames or identifies the subject.
Hide and Seek
Some subjects can be harder to find than Judge Crater, Bigfoot, or Jimmy Hoffa. Foremost among these hard-to-find subjects is the subject that has the nerve to come after the verb. Inverted word order can make it difficult to find the true subject. But wherever the subject is, it still must agree in number with its verb, as these examples show:
Danger, Will Robinson
Most measurements are singular—even though they look plural. For example: “Half a dollar is more than enough” (not “are more than enough”) or “Ten inches is more than enough” (not “are more than enough”).
· On the top of the hill are two Elvis impersonators.
· The plural subject impersonators agrees with the plural verb are.
· There are still several agitators in the audience.
· The plural subject agitators requires the plural verb are.
Another tricky agreement situation occurs with linking verbs. As with all other verbs, a linking verb always agrees with its subject. Problems crop up when the subject and the linking verb (the predicate nominative) are not the same number. For example, the subject can be plural but the linking verb can be singular. Here's an example:
· Speeding trucks are one reason for the abundance of fresh produce in our grocery stores.
· The plural subject trucks agrees with the plural verb are. Don't be tricked by the singular predicate nominative reason.
· One reason for the abundance of fresh produce in our grocery stores is speeding trucks.
· Here, the singular subject reason agrees with the singular verb is. Here, the plural noun trucks is the predicate nominative.
Playing the Numbers
As you learned in the beginning of this section, in grammar, number refers to the two forms of a word: singular (one) or plural (more than one). With nouns, number is relatively easy to figure out. That's because most nouns form the plural by adding -s or -es. Here are some examples.
| Singular Nouns | Plural Nouns |
| stock report | stock reports |
| interest rate | interest rates |
| debt | debts |
Matchmaker, Matchmaker, Make Me a Match
Forget everything you learned about nouns when you start dealing with verbs. That's because we add -s or -es to the third-person singular form of most verbs. This is opposite to the way we form singular nouns. For example:
| Singular Verbs | Plural Verbs | |
| 1st and 2nd Person | 3rd Person | 1st, 2nd, 3rd Person |
| I start | he starts | we start |
| I do | he does | we do |
| Singular Be Verbs | Plural Be Verbs |
| (I) am | (we) are |
| (he, she, it) is | (they) are |
| (I, he, she, it) was | (we, they) were |
| (he, she, it) has been | (they) have been |
Mix and Match
You know the drill, so sharpen your pencils and get crackin' with the following 10 items. In each case, choose the verb that agrees with the subject.
1. There (is/are) a method to this madness.
2. The hostess trilled: “The Bengels (are/is) here!”
3. One reason for her success (was/were) her sunny personality.
4. The many mistakes made by the tour guide in giving directions (was/were) the reason we fired her.
5. (Does/Do) fig trees grow in this region?
6. (Is/Are) some the pie still in the refrigerator?
7. (Here's/Here are) more freeloaders for the open-house.
8. There (was/were) two good reasons for his decision.
9. Another example of Juan's fine leadership (is/are) the excellent roads.
10. Here (is/are) two gifts I'd especially like to receive: a wheelbarrow filled with cash and a diamond as big as the Ritz.
| Answers | ||
| 1. is | 5. Do | 9. is |
| 2. are | 6. Is | 10. are |
| 3. was | 7. Here are | |
| 4. were | 8. were |
Excerpted from The Complete Idiot's Guide to Grammar and Style © 2003 by Laurie E. Rozakis, Ph.D.. All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. Used by arrangement with Alpha Books, a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
To order this book direct from the publisher, visit the Penguin USA website or call 1-800-253-6476. You can also purchase this book at Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble.
Agree to Disagree
Like subjects and verbs, pronouns and antecedents (the words to which they refer) must agree. A pronoun replaces a noun. To make sure that your writing is clear, always use the noun before using the pronoun. Follow these rules to make sure that your pronouns and antecedents get on well:
1. A pronoun agrees (or matches) its antecedent in number, person, and gender.
o Number is amount: singular or plural.
o Person refers to the first person, second person, or third person (the person speaking, the person spoken to, or the person spoken about).
o Gender refers to masculine, feminine, or neuter references. He and him are masculine in gender, she and her are feminine, and it and its are neuter.
o For example:
o Louise gave her paycheck straight to the orthodontist.
o Both the antecedent Louise and the pronoun her are singular, in the third person, and feminine in gender.
o Errors often occur when there are incorrect shifts in person and gender. For example:
o Error: Herman will screen the video teleconference, which you need to stay timely.
o Correct: Herman will screen the video teleconference, which he needs to stay timely.
2. Use a singular personal pronoun with a singular indefinite pronoun.
o If anyone questions the amount, refer him or her to payroll.
o The singular pronouns him or her refer to the singular pronoun anyone.
o Each police officer and firefighter has to watch his or her figure.
o Use a singular pronoun if the nouns are preceded by each or every.
3. Use a plural pronoun when the antecedents are joined by and. This is true even if the antecedents are singular.
o Toody and Muldoon maintain their svelte figures by eating bean sprouts rather than donuts.
o Because the two singular antecedents Toody and Muldoon are joined by and, use the plural pronoun their.
4. Antecedents joined by or, nor, or correlative conjunctions such as either/or, neither/nor agree with the antecedent closer to the pronoun.
o Neither Toody nor the other officers eat their jelly donuts on duty.
o Use the plural pronoun their to agree with the plural antecedent officers.
o Neither the other officers nor Toody eats his donuts on duty.
o Use the singular pronoun his to agree with the singular antecedent Toody. Notice that the verb eats must also match.
5. Be sure that the pronoun refers directly to the noun. Confusion occurs when the pronoun can refer to more than one antecedent. If you end up with this mish-mash, rewrite the sentence.
o Confusing: Raul saw an ad in last week's newspaper, but he can't seem to find it.
o What is it that Raul can't find: the ad or the newspaper?
o Correct: Raul can't find the ad he saw in last week's newspaper.
6. Avoid sexist language. Traditionally, the pronouns he and his were used to refer to both men and women. Not any more. The current correct usage is he and she or she and he.
Strictly Speaking
Many people now use the plural personal pronoun their rather than the singular personal pronouns his and her with the singular indefinite pronouns everyone and everybody, as in “Everyone take out their pepper spray.” Purists still sneer at this usage, so agree to disagree at your own peril.
o Error: An employee should turn in his timesheet every Friday.
o Correct: An employee should turn in his or her timesheet every Friday.
o If the pronoun pairing necessary to avoid sexist language is cumbersome (and you better believe that it will be), try these options:
o Recast the sentence into third person, they or them. For example: Employees should turn in their timesheets every Friday.
o Recast the sentence into the second person, you. For example: You should turn in your timesheet every Friday.
o Try to eliminate the pronoun altogether. For example: Turn in timesheets every Friday.
7. Always use common sense. When the sentence doesn't seem to fit the rules and you can't figure out how to shoehorn it in, don't improvise, revise! Rewrite the sentence to avoid the problem entirely.
o Confusing: The executive director along with the marketing vice president (was, were?) at odds over the new scheduling system.
o Better: The executive director and the marketing vice president were at odds over the new scheduling system.
Danger, Will Robinson
Not all verbs add -s or -es when they become plural. For example words that end in -y, such as fry, change the -y to -i before adding -es. So I fry becomes he fries. Be on the lookout for the different ways that verbs form their plurals.
Nose to the Grindstone
This one should be a snap, given all the facts you've learned about agreement. In each case, choose the verb that agrees with the subject.
· Given by the people of France to the people of the United States as a symbol of a shared love of freedom and everlasting friendship, the Statue of Liberty (1 are/is) the largest freestanding sculpture ever created. It (2 weigh/weighs) 450,000 pounds and (3 rise/rises) 151 feet above its pedestal. More than 100 feet around, Ms. Liberty (4 boast/boasts) eyes 21/2 feet wide, a mouth 3 feet wide, and a nose 41/2 feet long. Her upraised right arm (5 extend/extends) 42 feet; her hand (6 are/is) nearly 17 feet long. Her fingers (7 are/is) close to 10 feet long. The statue (8 has/have) an interior framework of iron that (9 keep/keeps) it from toppling over. Tourists and guides enjoy (10 their/his/her) time with this stirring and symbolic landmark.
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