S-V Agreement: Making Subjects and Verbs Stop Arguing

Do your subjects and verbs argue as if they are attorneys in a court or law? Can they not agree who is supposed to be singular or plural? They don’t have to sue each other to make a good sentence!S-V Agreement is easy as your ABC’s.

First of all, if the subject is singular, the verb has to be singular as well. If the subject is plural, the verb has to be plural as well. Consider first and foremost the subject before writing your verb.

You were saying?             He thinks of us.

I say, hey!                           She tells me everything.

Different items joined by and or both is always plural:

Ham and cheese are ingredients for a wonderful sandwich.

…unless ‘and’ is joining two words of the same item.

Ham and cheese is my favorite sandwich.

Hot and spicy sounds exciting.

When two subjects are joined together by ‘or,’ ‘nor,’ ‘neither…nor,’ or by ‘either…or,’ the verb must agree with the nearest subject.

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Either he or she is liable for the damage.Neither she nor they are going to the beach.

Mass nouns are always singular…

The sugar is spicy.

…unless a quantifier is used.

Two cups of sugar are enough.

Okay, so I've to admit: I, too, have difficulties with S-V Agreement. More than many of us have difficulties with subject and verb agreement. Then again, practice makes perfect!

Do you have any questions you would like us to answer? Drop us an email at youweresayin@yahoo.com.

Angry Verbs Part 1: Past, Present, and Future Tenses

Let’s review a bit. Verbs are action-packed words that represent an action or a state, or both. Verbs also represent the time the action happened. This action could be in the past, in the present, or in the future. These different forms are called tenses.

A verb in the past tense is something that has happened before. They usually end in –ed. The present tense is something…in the present. Like, right now at this time. The future tense illustrates something that is yet to happen. Let’s have an example:

Luke, I am your father. (The verb ‘am’ is in the present tense)

Luke, I was your father. (The word ‘was’ is in the past tense. He disowned him.)

Luke, I will be your father. (‘will be’ is future tense. I guess he’s planning to adopt him?)

When writing in the present tense, you must make the verb agree with the subject. So consider whether the subject is singular or plural:

They laugh. (Plural)

He laughs. (Singular)

Add –ed to verbs in the past tense:

He laughed like crazy.

Note that not all verbs in the past tense end in –ed. These are called irregular verbs:

He drove me crazy.

I lost my mind.

For the future tense, just add will to the normal form of the verb.

He will laugh like crazy.

Are verbs driving you nuts? Don’t worry—mastery comes with practice.

Angry Verbs: an Introduction to Action-Packed Words

Always remember: a sentence is as good as its verb. The verb is perhaps the most important part of the sentence. Nothing can fail more than a misused verb. It may also be the most confusing element of grammar. Imagine: it has 12 tenses. Apart from having a dozen tenses, verbs are extremely eccentric. We have auxiliary, main, linking, transitive, intransitive, regular, irregular, finite, and infinite verbs. Let’s add more confusion: verbs are commonly mistaken as gerunds.

Photo from cdn.geekscrunch.com

Let us take the word ‘drive,’ for example. One little word can be so flexible:

Drives; am/is/are driving; has/have driven; has/have been driven; drove; was/were driving; had driven; had been driven; will/shall drive; will be driving; will have driven; will have been driven. There’s the infinitive to drive and the gerund driving.

Don’t let verbs ruin you! With much study and application, you can master the intuitive use of verbs. By practicing, you can command the verbs to agree with their subjects. Worry not, friend, some of the next posts under grammar will be about verbs!

Grammar Gremlins

There are good reasons why you should avoid these gremlins like the little devils they are. They’re annoying and they make sure your grammar is in a mess. Now read on and avoid these 13 Gremlins of Grammar.

The Thirteen Gremlins of Grammar

photo from protrainco.com

By Graham King (1930-1999)

1.)    Correct speling is essential.

2.)    Don’t use no double negatives.

3.)    Verbs has got to agree with their subjects.

4.)    Don’t write run-on sentences they are hard to read.

5.)    About them sentence fragments.

6.)    Don’t use commas, that aren’t necessary.

7.)    A preposition is not a good word to end a sentence with.

8.)    Remember not to ever split infinitives.

9.)    Writing carefully, dangling participles must be avoided.

10.)  Alway’s use apostrophe’s correctly.

11.) Make each singular pronoun agree with their antecedents.

12.)  Join clauses good, like a conjunction should.

13.) Proofread your writing to make sure you don’t words out.

And, above all, avoid clichés like the Plague.

the 5 People You Meet in Heaven: Count or Mass Noun?

The Five People You Meet in Heaven is one of my favorite novellas of all time; because of that, it is our subject for today's topic, count & mass nouns.

Photo from the January Magazine

Count nouns are nouns which are...you guessed it, countable! Some examples are ring (5 rings), bird (4 birds), hen (3 hens), and so on. And because they are countable, you can use numbers along them.

Mass nouns are the opposite. You can't count them. Examples are sugar, coffee, sand. Note that they are always singular, unless you use quantifiers with them.

A cup of coffee.

Two cups of coffee.

So is the word 'people' a count noun, or a mass noun? Is it singular or is it plural?

The word 'people' is confusing as what it represents. People is singular in writing but plural in meaning. The singular form of people is person.

These people are annoying.

People don't know how to see beauty.

People can become a mass noun (which means it becomes singular) when used with a collective noun.

A group of people goes to church. [group is singular, hence the singular verb]

Groups of people attack them. [group here is plural.]

Yet, people may be used as a count noun, too--after all it is plural in meaning.

10 people are procrastinating.

So what is wrong with 'the Five People You Meet in Heaven'? Let's take Strunk and White's approach:

The word people is best not used with words of number, in place of persons.

You've met four people in heaven already. How many people are you to meet yet? One people.

BUT! Note that the title of the novella is protected by artistic licence, which means the title is actually free from the rules of grammar. Well, we had fun with the lesson, right? :D

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William Strunk JR., and E.B. White are authors of the book the Elements of Style.