Subject — Verb Agreement
It’s important, even in a casual writing forum like a blog. And as I have seen not one or two, but literally dozens of violations of this basic grammar rule on the blogging site that I frequent, I’m going to give you the lowdown on SVA.
Nouns are either singular or plural. (Or collective…I’ll get to that in a minute.) That is, they refer to one thing or to more than one thing. “Bob” is singular. “Men” is plural.
Verbs are also singular or plural. That is, a verb means that only one thing acted/was acted upon, or more than one thing acted/was acted upon. Sometimes, a verb’s singular and plural forms do not change: “Bob ran. Men ran.” Sometimes, a verb’s singular and plural forms do change: “Bob is. Men are.”
With me so far?
A noun must agree with its verb in number. If you are using a singular noun, you must use a singular verb. Ditto for plurals. You don’t say (or write) “Bob are eating.” You say “Bob is eating.” It’s not “Men is happy.” It’s “Men are happy.”
Most people don’t get confused with the simple forms of sentences. The confusing elements come in when you have inverted sentence structure, as in a question, or when you have a non-specific pronoun, or when you have a collective noun. Let’s talk about the collectives first.
Collective nouns group a lot of like things together into a Singular whole. “Everyone” is a singular collective noun. It requires a singular verb: “Everyone is having fun.” “Everyone needs a book.” Some nouns are annoyingly singular or plural, depending on the author’s preference or meaning. “Data” and “media” are two examples. When referring to the media as a whole, you may say “The media is biased.” When referring to multiple groups within the media, you might say “The liberal media are biased.” Avoid these words or always treat them as singulars. It’s easier.
Now let’s talk about non-specific pronouns such as “each” and “all.” You must determine whether the word is being used as a singular or plural. For some, like “each,” that’s easy. “Each” is always singular. “Each of the boys is going home now.” Seem wrong? Many people would say/write “Each of the boys are…” but that is incorrect. “Of the boys” is a plural, but it is not the subject of the sentence; it’s a prepositional phrase modifiying (expanding or explaining) “each.” For other words, like “all,” determining number may be harder. “All” is usually plural: “All of the books are on the shelf.” But it could be singular “All is well.” Again, determining these distinctions takes time and practise.
Finally, don’t let inverted sentence structures confuse you. For example, it’s easy to tell what the verb should be in a sentence like “His opinions are important.” But some folks find it a bit confusing if you turn it into a question: “Is/Are his opinions important?” The easiest way to get it right is to flop the sentence back to regular form. I would never say “his opinions is important” so I know the question should begin with “Are….?”