Singular subjects must have singular verbs, and plural subjects must have plural verbs.

A singular subject + of +  a plural object. What misleads many an author and some editors is those constructions where the true subject of a sentence is singular but it is followed by a phrase beginning with the preposition ‘of’ followed by a plural object! For example: ‘The noise of the mynah birds in the trees ARE distracting me’. Here, ‘are’ must be replaced by ‘is’, because  ‘noise’ is the true subject of the verb, not birds or trees.

None. There used to be a hard-and-fast rule that, because ‘none’ = ‘not one’, the verb associated with it HAD to be singular. That rule has been relaxed somewhat in current English usage, so that a statement such as ‘None of the bridges are passable’ (as opposed to ‘is passable’) tends to be considered acceptable usage nowadays.

Either/neither. If two singular things are being referred to, the verb associated with them is singular.

If ‘either … or / neither … nor’ refers to a singular thing and a plural thing, the verb take its numbers from the noun closest to it: ‘Neither the teacher nor the learners ARE able to explain it’ vs ‘Neither the learners nor the teacher IS able to explain it’.

Published on: Aug 18, 2023 at 18:46

215 words