English

Practical English Grammar


More subject verb agreement situations


An expression of an amount, including fractions, measurements, percent-
ages, and time periods, can be singular or plural depending on its use.

Two-sixths equals one-third. (Two sixths is considered a single unit.)
Sixteen hours is a very long time to wait. (Sixteen hours is a unit of
time, one block of time according to the sentence.)

Five dollars were left on the table. (These are five separate dollars; use the
plural verb, were.)
Two-thirds of the drummers are practicing. (Drummers is plural; use the
plural verb, are.)

A verb that precedes the sentence’s subject agrees with the subject in number.
In the following sentences, the verb is in italics, and the subject is underlined.
Here is a fortune cookie for you. (singular subject and verb)
There are seven board gamesover there. (plural subject and verb)
The title of a book, city, country, film, magazine, organization, painting,
sculpture, or song that is plural still takes a singular verb.
(The italicized subjects and the underlined verbs below are singular.)
Des Moines is Iowa’s capital city.
The Rolling Stones was my uncle’s favorite rock group.
When a relative pronoun, such as that, which, or who, starts an adjective
clause, the clause’s verb agrees in number with the noun or pronoun to
which the relative pronoun refers.
The woman who is directing the chorus is Ms. Linden. (Who refers to
the singular noun, woman.)
The ladies who are singing together are Kate and Moe. (Who takes a
plural verb, are, because it refers back to ladies, a plural noun.)

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Notes


Practical English Grammar - Notes
1. compound subjects part two
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2. Quotation Marks Part Three
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3. Italics Hyphens and Brackets
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4. complete and simple subjects
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5. Sound a like words Part Four
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6. the adjective clause
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7. Commas Part Two
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8. Commas Part Four
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9. compound subjects part one
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10. the indirect object
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11. irregular verbs part two
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12. what good writers do
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13. the noun adjective pronoun question
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14. Periods Question Marks and Exclamation Marks
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15. the object of the preposition
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16. types of nouns
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17. reflexive demonstrative and interrogative pronouns
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18. the adverb
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19. The nominative case
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20. Commas Part Three
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21. The Apostrophe
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22. The Colon
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23. Quotation Marks Part Two
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24. First Capitalization List
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25. subject verb agreement situations
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26. subject and verb agreement
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27. the correlative conjunction
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28. the subordinating conjunction
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29. the interjection
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30. Confusing usage words part five
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31. Quotation Marks Part One
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32. Second Capitalization List
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33. indefinite pronouns
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34. introducing phrases
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35. the verb phrase
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36. the prepositional phrase
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37. the adjective phrase
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38. the appositive
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39. the participle and participial phrase
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40. the infinitive and infinitive phrase
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41. the noun clause
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42. Confusing usage words part one
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43. Confusing usage words part two
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44. Confusing usage words part three
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45. Confusing usage words part six
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46. Confusing usage words part seven
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47. Active and passive voices
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48. Commas Part One
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49. The Semicolon
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50. agreement between indefinite pronouns and their antecedents
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