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Ppo218 Posted 10 years ago
Grammar
Subject-predicate case
I'm a native English speaker, but this issue has always bothered me.
Say we are talking about two things I can learn at, say, some camp.
Here's the first sentence. All good here.
"The first thing is love."
Now here comes the problem. It happens when I introduce two things.
"The second (is or are) the strategies and thoughts that go into loving."
I'm talking about one thing here, but that thing is actually composed of two separate concepts.
Which linking verb makes sense here?
Say we are talking about two things I can learn at, say, some camp.
Here's the first sentence. All good here.
"The first thing is love."
Now here comes the problem. It happens when I introduce two things.
"The second (is or are) the strategies and thoughts that go into loving."
I'm talking about one thing here, but that thing is actually composed of two separate concepts.
Which linking verb makes sense here?
Top answer
This is a rather common occurrence in English. In this type of situation, as far as grammar goes, we are concerned with singular or plural agreement between the subject and the verb, not with the complement: The second is... The second is the strategies ad thoughts that go into loving.
- This is a rather common occurrence in English.
- In this type of situation, as far as grammar goes, we are concerned with singular or plural agreement between the subject and the verb, not with the complement: The second is...
- The second is the strategies ad thoughts that go into loving.
- The subject-verb relationship is the most important relationship in the sentence.
- is not part of that situation.
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2 Answers
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This is a rather common occurrence in English. In this type of situation, as far as grammar goes, we are concerned with singular or plural agreement between the subject and the verb, not with the complement: The second is...
The second is the strategies ad thoughts that go into loving.
The subject-verb relationship is the most important relationship in the sentence. You want your
The second is the strategies ad thoughts that go into loving.
The subject-verb relationship is the most important relationship in the sentence. You want your
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eg.
I want to talk about two topics.
The first (topic) is teenage love and marriage.
The second (topic) is our teachers' expectations and those stupid standardized tests.
Subject-verb agreement can be tricky. Here is a very good article on the subject.
http://grammar.ccc.co
I want to talk about two topics.
The first (topic) is teenage love and marriage.
The second (topic) is our teachers' expectations and those stupid standardized tests.
Subject-verb agreement can be tricky. Here is a very good article on the subject.
http://grammar.ccc.co
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