Learning English

Dan

…and I say that a dancing dog is funnier than a cat playing the piano! Well I disagree! But unfortunately for subjects and verbs, according to the rules of grammar, they must agree. So here are three more ways to make sure that your subjects and verbs always agree. Roll tape!

1.  Collective nouns with both singular and plural.

The government is debating the new law.
The government are debating the new law.

Now, government is a collective noun which represents a group of people, like police. But unlike police, which is always plural, government can be singular or plural depending on whether you mean: a group of individuals working together, i.e. they; or a single unit, it. Here are some more examples.

Family, committee, team, crew, jury, public

It’s also worth noting that in a relative clause, we use ‘who’ for the group and ‘which’ for the unit. For example: 

The government, who are in talks right now, are reviewing the law.
The government, which is in talks right now, is reviewing the law.

Do you see the difference?

2: Quantities & amounts, portions and mathematics.

3 minutes is perfect for tea.

Now, despite the fact that 3 is a plural number and minutes is a plural noun, this sentence uses a singular verb; and this is because within the context, three minutes is considered to be one unit of time. This is true for amounts, distances, periods of time, quantities, weights etc. Here are some more examples. 

3 minutes is perfect.
£100 is a fortune!
24 hours is all I need.
26 miles isn't so far!

Be careful with expressions with ONE. Even if the noun is plural, we still use a singular verb. This is easier to remember with something like:
One of my friends has a Ferrari.

But much more difficult when you have a sentence such as:
More than one of us is a secret undercover agent.

But be careful with portions! The noun after ‘of’ dictates the verb. For example.

Half of the cake was eaten.
Half of the cakes were eaten.

Finally, when ‘speaking’ mathematics the verb can be singular or plural and the funny thing is that people often switch inconsistently, even in the same sentence. So, for example: 

Two and three is five.
Two and three are five.
Or Two plus three is five.

3.  Indefinite nouns.

Finally, a quick note about indefinite nouns such as: somebody, anywhere, nothing…and the others. They take singular verbs. For example:

Someone is at the door!

However, once you’ve referred to somebody using ‘someone’, the pronoun that we use to refer to the same person is ‘they’, which takes a plural verb; and this is because we don’t know if the person is a he or a she. For example:

Someone is at the door. They are knocking loudly!

Did you get it? Of course you got it! Now for more information please log on to bbclearningenglish.com. I’ve been Dan, you’ve been fantastic. See you next time, ok? Hello? What do you mean Titanic was more romantic than Terminator 2? Are you mad? I cried at the end of Terminator 2! No it was the bit with the thumb…