Subject and Verb Agreement with Compound Subjects

In my recent post “Subject and Verb Agreement: Interrupting Words”,  I mentioned that many people make the mistake of trying to have the verb agree with the word it’s closest to.  Now we get to compound subjects and the earlier statement sounds almost like a contradiction. So let’s see how bad we can disfigure compound subjects.

 Compound subjects are joined by certain words to indicate they are compound.  Words like and, or, neither, either, etc.  When these words bring two subjects together the verb needs to agree with the subject it’s closest to. (Remember the example in “Subject and Verb Agreement: Interrupting Words”?—statues was the subject of the sentence, not shelf, so the verb had to agree with the subject ‘statues’.)

If the subject is compound, then the verb agrees with the part of the subject it’s closest to.

Examples:
Either Kevin or Brian plays the lead solo every week. (Plays will agree with Brian as if it were singular because Brian is closest.)
A book or a magazine is fine for reading material. (Is agrees with magazine)

But what if one subject is singular and one is plural?  The same rule applies.  Isn’t that a relief?

Neither the cake nor the hamburgers were enough to keep us happy. (Were agrees with the plural subject hamburgers because it’s closest to hamburgers. )

Neither the hamburgers nor the cake was enough to keep us happy. (Was agrees with cake because it’s closest, so we chose a singular verb.)

But if we use other conjunctions to join two subjects, we have another rule to go by.  If we join the subjects with words like; and or both, we have to use the plural form of the verb because and/both indicates there is more than one.

Examples:
The spatula and the whisk are in the second drawer on the right. (We’re talking about two items so the verb is plural.)
Both the guitars and the amp were left in the car. (Guitars is plural and amp is singular, but since they are joined with the word and, the verb is plural.)

Then of course, we have to have exceptions to all the rules just to make things a little more difficult.

Sometimes there are two subjects joined by and, but they are considered one item.  This is one rule that always makes a sentence sound funny to me.  I’m sure I always mis-use this rule.

Examples:
Peanut butter and chocolate is my favorite combination.
Fruit and cheese is a good afternoon snack.
Bacon and eggs is also good for supper.

These items are usually thought of together as one item, so we use a singular verb.  The last example is one that, to me, would sound better with the verb are, but according to the rule and because they are usually synonomous breakfast foods that go hand in hand, we should use is.

Each and every time you think you have the rules down, another exception comes along.  This exception refers to the words each and every.

If a sentence begins with each or every and contains a compound subject, the verb is singular to agree with a singular subject.

Examples:
Every writer and editor attends the annual conference.
Each boy and girl looks nice in their costumes.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this refresher course in subject and verb agreement.  I understand it’s not the most exciting subject under the sun, but for writers it’s very important.

I think next time I will relate quantum physics to writing because I’m pretty sure quantum physics can’t be this difficult. 

Do you have trouble with subject and verb agreement when writing?  Do you find the rules to be a little bit difficult?  Let us know if you have any simple solutions for keeping these rules straight.

Written by Patti Stafford from Patti Stafford
Posted on May 11th, 2009 and filed under Writing
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