False Attractions

Another major source of subject-verb agreements is what some grammarians refer to as "false attractions." That is, "Unwary writers are falsely attracted to some noun other than the subject and mistakenly use its number to determine the number of the verb." (Good, 2002) This section examines a number of the most commonly made false attractions in writing.

Plural Intervening Words. Sometimes, a plural word will be written between the subject of the sentence and its verb. In these cases, it is very common for the writer to associate the verb with the plural word rather than the subject. (Good, 2002) This is particularly true when dealing with plural objects of a prepositional phrase. Examples are provided below with the subject and verb in italics and the correct verb in brackets [...].

"One of the dogs want [wants] to go outside." Here, the subject is singular ("one"), so the verb must match the word "one" instead of "dogs."

Singular Intervening Words. This is the exact opposite problem from the first false attraction presented above. Examples include those listed below.

"The decisions of the Supreme Court is [are] the final say in American jurisprudence." The subject "decisions" is plural, therefore the verb must be plural ("are" rather than "is").

Verbs and the Predicate Noun. A predicate noun is a noun that follows a form of the verb "to be" which restates or identifies the subject of the sentence. (Good, 2002) The subject always determines the number of the verb. Predicate nouns, whether singular or plural, have no effect on the verb whatsoever. Observe the following examples.

"One popular type of medicine is over-the-counter drugs." Do not get confused by the word "drugs." It is the predicate of the sentence and should have no effect on the verb, which reflects the singular subject "One."

"The most common error made by young professional quarterbacks is passing under pressure." This may sound incorrect, but it is, in fact, grammatically accurate. True, "passes" is plural, but it is the predicate of the sentence, not the subject. The subject is "error," so the singular verb "is" is correct.