Was/were agreement

Question

Hi, teachers.I wonder whether we should use was or were in such a sentence:At the bus stop _____ a soldier and two young people on their way to the village.Would you please share your ideas about it with me?Thank you in advance.

Avangi · Accepted Answer

You definitely need the plural, "were."

Two people were at the bus stop.
At the bus stop were two people.

Changing the order of the sentence doesn't change the agreement. The subject of the sentence is the same in both versions (plural).

Norwolf · Answer

AvangiYou definitely need the plural, "were."

Two people were at the bus stop.

At the bus stop were two people.

Changing the order of the sentence doesn't change the agreement. The subject of the sentence is the same in both versions (plural).

True. And thank you so much.

But, dear Avangi, in a way, they are different. In my case, there is an "a" following the word "be".

Once I learned that in there-be sentences we sticked to the principle of PROXIMITY.

Norwolf · Answer

norwolf
AvangiYou definitely need the plural, "were."

Two people were at the bus stop.

At the bus stop were two people.

Changing the order of the sentence doesn't change the agreement. The subject of the sentence is the same in both versions (plural).

True. And thank you so much.

But, dear Avangi, in a way, they are different. In my case, there is an "a" following the word "be".

Once I learned that in there-be sentences we stuck to the principle of PROXIMITY.

My question is:

Which should we follow in the inversions, the principle of GRAMMATICAL CONCORD or the principle of PROXIMITY?

I got these sentences from COCA. Are they informal?

On the left was a Sock Shop and a sandwich bar and on the right a pub, The Grapes, which he had got drunk in once several years before with his friends from Manchester.

On the inscription is a football player and a Bible with a cross next to the words: " We Love You Sweet. "

On the floor was a silver tray and the shattered remains of several crystal glasses which it appeared the maid had let slip from her fingers.

In the valley is a stone house and perhaps a river.

In between there is a washing machine and a dryer and a big wash basket.

At the front is a waiting room and a cluster of business offices.

At the bottom was a large plain and many shallow lakes, including Lake Texcoco, a large body of salt water.

At its heart is a superconductive coil and a pressure vessel full of plasma heated to about 100 millionC.

On it was a hand-painted pitcher and tumblers and loose lemons as garnish

A mistake. Sorry.

Avangi · Answer

A mistake. Sorry.

Now I'm really puzzled. I thought your point was excellent. Your COCA examples were surely counter to the answer I gave, although in that particular case I would use the plural. I didn't know how to answer you, and asked for help. But it was not forthcoming.

Yankee · Answer

Hi Norwolf

I'm pretty sure I'd use 'were' in the sentence you posted. I don't think it likely that I'd view "a soldier and two young people" as a singular (collective) unit. This sentence is a case of inversion. The uninverted sentence could be written like this:

- A soldier and two young people were at the bus stop, on their way to the village.

On the other hand, in "there is/are" sentences (i.e. not an inversion), the verb often agrees in number with the noun closest to it. So, you might hear either one of these sentences:

- There was an old soldier and two young people at the bus stop.
- There were two young people and an old soldier at the bus stop.

Your inverted sentence does share some similarities with a "there is/are" sentence, however, so it's not surprising to find the singular verb used.

Avangi · Answer

Thanks, Yankee!  <img class='emoticon' style='Width:19px;Height:19px;' data-delaysrc='https://uat-englishforward-forums-backend.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/Emoticons/1.gif' src='https://uat-englishforward-forums-backend.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/Emoticons/1.gif' alt='Emotion: smile'/>

Norwolf · Answer

Thank you, Yankee.

So we can use both words in such sentences.

Avangi · Answer

norwolf At the bus stop __ a soldier and two young people on their way to the village.

The difference I now notice between your original example and the COCA examples is that your series begins with a single unmodified noun ("a soldier"), while all of the initial nouns in the COCA examples are modified.
I think this makes it unnatural to say ". . . . was a soldier and . . . . ,"
compared to ". . . . was a hand-painted pitcher and . . . . "

Notice Yankee's examples:

- There was an old soldier and two young people at the bus stop.
- There were two young people and an old soldier at the bus stop.

In the first one, she adds the modifier "old."

In the second one, she places "two young people" first in the series. Even a greenhorn would not write "There was two young people . . . "
Granted, "there was/were" is a special case.

Was/were agreement

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