3.1 Agreement Between Subject and Verb
In the grammatical code of English, a verb must agree with its subject according to whether the subject is singular or plural: a singular subject takes a singular verb; a plural subject takes a plural verb.
When the subject of the sentence includes both singular and plural words, take care to identify the part of the subject that controls the verb. In the following examples, the part of the subject that controls the verb appears in bold letters and the verb is underlined.
In Example 1, it is not the ‘manufactured goods’ that are drawing crowds but, rather, the ‘exhibition’. Similarly, in Example 2, it is not the ‘breakdown’ or the ‘equipment’ that has not yet been established; it is the ‘reasons’.
Errors of subject-verb agreement are nearly always the result of misidentifying the number (i.e. singular or plural) of the subject. The following are some points to help you in deciding whether to use a singular or plural verb to agree with the subject in particular cases.
Singular pronoun rule
The following pronouns are singular and are always followed by a singular verb:
| each | anybody |
| every | anyone |
| either | everyone |
| neither | everybody |
Plural name for single entity rule
When a plural noun is in fact the name for a single item, it requires a singular verb. In the following examples, the subject appears in bold letters and the verb is underlined.
This rule also applies to amounts of money and periods of time.
Exceptions to the single entity rule:
The following words all require a plural verb.
| barracks | proceeds | thanks |
| premises | scissors | trousers |
| pants | statistics | tweezers |
Collective noun/singular verb rule
A collective noun takes a singular verb. For instance, ‘a flock of sheep’ may be made up of many individual sheep, but when we use the collective noun ‘flock’, we are referring to these sheep as a single entity.
However, sometimes when writing about a group, there is a need to distinguish individual members of the group from one another. In the first of the following two examples, is referring to the group as one whole entity; in the second example, it’s focusing on individual members.
Subject joined with 'and' rule
Two or more singular objects joined by ‘and’ require a plural verb.
Subject-support unit verb-rule
As in the Sentence Structure Section, when the subject is separated from the verb by a support unit such as ‘and not’, ‘together with’, ‘with’, or ‘as well as’, the number (singular or plural) of the verb is not affected.
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