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Anonymous Posted 14 years ago
Grammar

begin or begins

I am drafting an announcement and I'm stumped. Could you please tell me if it's correct to state:
dinner and program begin at 7:00 pm, or dinner and program begins at 7:00 pm? Do I follow the "me/I" rule where if I remove the second subject the sentence still needs to make sense, so it would be begins? Or do I treat it like a plural subject and it would be begin? I'm totally confused...I think I'm overthinking it. I appreciate the correct answer though :0)

Thanks!
  

Top answer

" If not, you can't write that they both begin then, unless you are OK with leaving that up in the air, maybe because if they miss the dinner, they can't get in to see the program. " You can't write "Dinner and program begins" because the reader sees no immediate justification for lumping the two things together in a single conceptual unit, even though they might actually be one, and hears a grammar mistake before he can catch up. The "remove one subject" rule is for the case of pronouns, not for number.

— Enoon

  • " If not, you can't write that they both begin then, unless you are OK with leaving that up in the air, maybe because if they miss the dinner, they can't get in to see the program.
  • " You can't write "Dinner and program begins" because the reader sees no immediate justification for lumping the two things together in a single conceptual unit, even though they might actually be one, and hears a grammar mistake before he can catch up.
  • The "remove one subject" rule is for the case of pronouns, not for number.
  • "Ted and I went fishing" is right because "I went fishing" is right.
  • "Ted and me went fishing" is wrong because "Me went fishing" is wrong.
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1 Answers
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If the dinner and the program start at the same time, it's, "Dinner and program begin at 7:00 pm." If not, you can't write that they both begin then, unless you are OK with leaving that up in the air, maybe because if they miss the dinner, they can't get in to see the program. Maybe, "Dinner begins at 7:00 pm, with program immediately afterwards." You can't write "Dinner and program begins" becaus
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