I could say: “She is a nice person.” But I wouldn’t say “She are a nice person.”
I might say: “We are nice people.” But I would never say “We is nice people.”
This is called “Subject-Verb Agreement.” Basically, if the subject is a singular noun,
you use a singular verb. If the subject is a plural noun, you use a plural verb. Seems
simple enough, right? But there are several tricky situations where you may not be SURE
if the subject is singular or plural. Let’s figure those out.
Your subject might be composed of more than one noun or pronoun. If the words are connected
by AND, use a plural verb. For example: “Susan and I are playing tennis tomorrow.”
We would say “Susan IS playing tennis tomorrow,” or “I AM playing tennis tomorrow,” because
those are singular subjects, so they take singular verbs. However, the combination “Susan
and I” is plural, so we use the plural verb ARE.
BUT. If the words are connected by OR or NOR, use a singular verb:
“Neither Susan nor her mother enjoys running.” Here, the subject is the word “neither,”
which is singular, so we use the singular verb “enjoys.” If you take out the phrase
“Susan nor her mother,” you get the sentence “Neither enjoys running,” which is correct.
A little trick is to mentally say to yourself “neither one.” “Neither one enjoys running.”
That gives us subject-verb agreement.
There are other words, like neither, that always call for a singular verb. These include:
anybody, anyone, each, either, everybody, everyone, nobody, no one, somebody, and someone.
Did someone say something? Is somebody here? No, it’s no one. Nobody’s here. Everybody
Often the subject of your sentence is some distance from the verb. This can lead to confusion
if your subject is singular, but there is a clause with something plural in it before
the verb. For example: “Mason, along with his brothers, goes fishing
every weekend.” If you take out the phrase “along with his brothers,” you’ll find
the sentence is “Mason goes fishing every weekend.” Don’t let that plural word “brothers”
fool you. That’s not the subject of this sentence. When in doubt, take out a pen and
circle the subject and the verb to make it extra clear. They need to agree.
What about when the subject FOLLOWS the verb? The same rules apply, you just have to be
careful. For example: “There are many trees in the forest.”
The subject is trees, which is plural. So we use a plural verb, ARE. This is a rule
that many people break in casual language, saying things like “There’s my keys!”
instead of “There are my keys.” But WE know the second version is correct. A plural
subject calls for a plural verb.
Let’s talk about some special cases. Even though you are only wearing one pair of pants,
this is a plural noun. Same with trousers, and jeans. My jeans are dark blue. Your trousers
match your sweater. We use plural verbs to agree with these plural nouns. Same goes for
a pair of scissors. “My scissors ARE very sharp.”
There’s another type of noun that is kind of the opposite. These are called COLLECTIVE
NOUNS, and although this kind of noun is really about more than one person, you treat it as
a singular noun and so it takes a singular verb. Family, for example. My family IS large.
Team is another one. The team IS celebrating its victory. You might think the word “police”
is a collective noun, but..no. We treat it as plural. “The police ARE conducting investigations.”