When I was teaching English Learners in high school, we spent A LOT of time studying subject-verb agreement. I did this every single year with every single level because I thoroughly enjoyed torturing my students with grammar rules it’s incredibly important! From high school students learning English to PhD candidates, from journalists to CEOs, a failure to grasp subject-verb agreement can make your writing look lousy!
What is Subject-Verb Agreement?
From here on out, let’s use SVA when we’re talking about this topic because typing out subject-verb agreement over and over is tiring.
Very simply, subjects and verbs in a sentence must agree in number. Here are a few examples.
Example 1
The dog jumps when he sees me.
“Dog” is the subject. “Dog” is singular, so we use the singular form of the verb, “jumps”.
Example 2
Many children run on the playground.
“Children” is the subject and it is plural (the word “many” helps us know that), so we have to use the plural form of the verb which is “run”.
You can’t say “the dog jump when he see me” or “many children runs on the playground” because then the subject and the verb are not in agreement about the number of subjects.
For most native English speakers, this comes pretty naturally so you’re feeling pretty good about these rules right now. However, there are a few tricky sentence structures that can trip up even the best of us if we’re not careful. Check these out.
Prepositional Phrases
As long as the subject and the verb are side-by-side, it’s pretty easy to keep track of SVA. However, when you’re writing more complex sentences, your subject and your verb might get separated.
The floodlights in the yard suddenly turn on.
The subject is “floodlights”, but there are four words in between it and the verb (“turn”). Don’t get distracted by the prepositional phrase “in the yard”; it’s just telling you where the floodlights are located.
The boxes of brownie mix are sitting on the counter.
Brownies are delicious, but the subject we’re interested in is “boxes” (less delicious). Ignore “of brownie mix” and make sure that you’ve used the correct form of the verb “to be”, which is “are” in this case, to match your plural subject.
Conjunctions
Sometimes, you might have two subjects joined by a conjunction or a connecting word like “and”, “or”, or “nor”. When you see “and”, think about adding the subjects together. When you see “or” or “nor”, you can choose only one, and it has to be the one that is closer to the verb.
When I look outside, a racoon and her babies run across the yard away from the trash cans.
“Racoon and babies” is a plural subject because it is connected by the word “and”. Therefore, use “run” instead of “runs” for proper SVA.
My husband or some kitchen fairies have turned the box of brownies into a pan of brownies.
Here, “husband” and “fairies” are separated by the word “or”. In this case, we have to choose the kitchen fairies as the subject because it is closer to the verb. Bonus tip: The helping verb is the part that agrees with the subject, in this case, “have turned” instead of “has turned”.
Collective Nouns
When you talk about a group of people, you often use a singular verb. Words like “group”, “family”, “team”, and “congregation” are all singular subjects even though they refer to many people.
The team is packing the bus for the big game.
Of course, there are many people on the team, but because they are referred to as a singular entity (i.e., one team), a singular verb is used.
The congregation stands to sing at the end of the service.
The congregations come together to raise money for the food pantry.
Collective nouns can be made plural by adding an -s.
Tricky Things
English is fun, so there are a few tricks that it likes to play.
1. Indefinite pronouns like either, neither, everyone, anyone, nobody, somebody, etc. are all singular.
Either of these sweaters is fine.
Although “sweaters” seems like it should be the subject, “either” swoops in to steal its thunder. The word “either” means that only one of those sweaters matters, and so the verb must be singular.
2. Some words that look plural take a singular verb.
I can’t believe how much negative news is out there.
“News” is not countable, so it takes a singular verb. Similarly, “civics”, “mathematics”, and “measles” also require singular verbs.
“Dollars” is tricky because it can be either singular or plural.
Twenty dollars is a lot of money when you’re ten years old. (Refers to the amount)
Dollars are used in the United States instead of pesos or pounds. (Refers to the physical dollars)
3. Phrases between commas that interrupt a subject and a verb such as “including”, “as well”, and “with” do not change the SVA of the sentence.
The author, as well as the editor, accepts the award at the ceremony.
Here, the author is the subject of the sentence, and so the verb agrees with the singular author. Although we’re being told that the editor also accepted an award, the phrasing basically makes it irrelevant and doesn’t affect the number in the subject.
How About You?
Do you notice that any of these rules trip you up? Do you have other words or phrases that always make you pause before you choose your verb form?
Dayna Betz is a full-time freelancer providing proofreading and editing services to help writers put their best foot forward. She also enjoys reading and writing book reviews. Head over to her site to learn more: https://betzliterary.com.
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