Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
>> INSTRUCTOR: Alright, so now we're going to talk about something called subject-verb
agreement.
Your subjects and verbs have to agree. Well, what does that mean?
When you have a subject and a verb, they have to agree in terms of number.
That means singular or plural.
So if you have a singular subject, it's going to take a singular verb.
And if you have a plural subject, then it's going to take a plural verb.
You just want them to match.
So let's look at this sentence. We have "The man sits."
Well "the man" is singular and "sits" is singular.
"Men" is plural and "sit" is plural, so it matches.
How can I tell if my subject and verb agree?
Well find your subject and find your verb.
Are they singular? Are they plural? And ask yourself "do they match?"
If the answer is "yes," you're good; if the answer is "no," then you need to revise.
For instance, let's look at this sentence.
"The houses on the next block is cheaper."
Well "houses" is my subject, and it's plural.
And then I have my verb "is," which is singular.
Uh-oh, I need to change something.
Maybe I'll make this plural. Now I have a plural subject and plural verb.
Or maybe I don't want to keep an "are."
Now I want to say "is." So if I have a singular verb,
I need to change my "houses" to "house" so that I have a singular subject.
Now occasionally you'll run into the problem with "everybody."
These are these words called "indefinite pronouns" that are like
"everybody", "everyone", "somebody", "someone"--all these words are singular,
which means if you have sentences like "No one comes to the party",
"Everyone tips the waiter", "Someone saves the day",
well "comes", "tips", "saves" are all singular verbs.
You might also have an issue with collective nouns:
these are things like "crowd," "team" "jury" "audience" "group" "committee".
These are a little bit tricky because it completely depends on what the noun is doing in the sentence.
For instance, if they're all working together, the noun is going to be singular.
But if they're not all working together, like if everybody's doing something different,
then the word is going to be plural.
So this one requires thinking in order to figure it out.
Let's try it out: "The audience claps at the end of the show."
Well they're all clapping together, so we have singular "claps."
Now let's look at another sentence. We have:
"After the show, the audience grab their coats exit the building, and head for the garage."
The audience here is not working as one unit, so they are plural.
"Grab", "exit" and "head" are all plural verbs.
So that's how audience will be either singular or plural.
Some tips for dealing with collective nouns:
The first thing you can do is add "members". Add "members of"
and that will clarify, because "members" is plural.
So you're not going to have any issues there.
Or you can just use a different word and avoid the issue
if you have an uncertain collective noun.
For instance, you could say "The members of the audience clap at the end of the show."
So now you have members clap and you don't have to sit there
going "audience--is it clapping together or is it not?"
Overall, when you're dealing with subject-verb agreement,
just make sure that your subject and your verb agree
in terms of numbers--singular or plural.