Look Good in Print

This text will refresh your memory or introduce you to the common writing rules for Standard American English. It addresses the 22 most common errors found in writing. Applying and using the fundamentals of good writing will ensure that your writing is clear, concise, and achieves your intended purposes.

02C: VERBS

18.  Make Subjects and Verbs Agree 

In sentences, subjects always have verbs associated with them. The subject is the actor, and the verb is the action (or the state of being). Writers who've grown up with English usually know what verb form to use because it "sounds right". Two situations can cause confusion, however: intervening prepositional phrases (by far the biggest offender), and other intervening elements.

Let's look at intervening prepositional phrases first. Which of the following two sentences sounds correct?

SENTENCE 1: Only one of the company executives is fully insured.

SENTENCE 2: Only one of the company executives are fully insured.

They both sound OK - in fact, Sentence 2 sounds better to many people. This is because the intervening prepositional phrase, "of the company executives," contains a plural noun. "Intervening" means the phrase comes between the subject ("one" in this case) and the verb ("is/are"). Which form of the verb should you use - singular or plural?

One way to solve this problem is to consult Fundamental #17 about keeping subjects close to their verbs. If we move the intervening phrase to the start of the sentence (making it an introductory phrase), we have the following:

REVISED SENTENCE 1: Of the company executives, only one is fully insured.

With the verb directly next to its subject, the confusion vanishes. The verb needs to be the singular "is". 

Note that the revised sentence sounds somewhat stilted and awkward, however. In fact, sometimes we don't want to move the intervening phrase; we want to keep it between the subject and the verb. Here is an example:

SENTENCE WITH INTERVENING PHRASE:   The auditors who won the PwC ethics award work in my office. 

Repositioning that intervening phrase would require some syntactical gymnastics.

SAME SENTENCE WITHOUT INTERVENING PHRASE:  Working in my office is a group of auditors who won the PwC ethics award.   

This rewritten sentence not only sounds weird, it's also longer than the original. So just remember that when you use an intervening phrase, your verb needs to agree with your subject, not with the nearest noun in the intervening phrase. Here are a few additional examples:

NO: The range of skill requirements provide for upward growth potential. 

("Range" does not agree with "provide".)

YES: The range of skill requirements provides for upward growth potential.

 

NO: The priceless book, as well as other valuable documents, were lost in the fire. 

(The book were lost?)

YES: The priceless book, as well as other valuable documents, was lost in the fire.

ALTERNATIVE YES: The priceless book and other valuable documents were lost in the fire.

Why is the verb "were" OK in the "alternative yes" sentence above? The phrase "as well as" does not give equal weight to the elements and therefore does not alter the singular subject, "book". On the other hand, the word "and" creates a plural subject. When in doubt, use the word "and" to create a plural subject - and as a bonus, you'll use fewer words.