Male: I think we better 1)review.
Female: Yup good idea.
Male: OK, the most important rule, the one that all the others serve to protect and 2)execute is that verbs and their subject must aGREe. Singular subjects get singular verbs and plural subjects get plural verbs.
Female: Right. “He goes,” that’s singular. “They go,” that’s plural. A good 3)rule of thumb is that if the subject is clearly plural as in “the flowers the voodoo dolls or the Flying Walendas, or two singular subjects are connected by “and” stick with plural verbs and you’ll do fine.
Male: The rules that are broken most often are those that say the verb should be singular even when it sounds like it should be plural.
Female: Rule number one: When using either...or, neither...nor or nor to connect singular subjects the verb stays singular to aGREe with the most important or primary subject.
Male: Examples: “Craig or Matthew is going to feed Cleo.” “Neither Cathy nor Alicia was willing to discipline the writer.” “When it comes to well defined pectorals, neither Michael nor Paul compares to Julian.”
Female: Rule number two: Subjects connected by “and” are plural, no matter how they started out.
Male: Examples: “Jack and Jill are naughty children.” “Jenny and her friends are spending the night in jail.”
Female: “Even together Frank Sinatra and Tony Bennet are no match for Mel Torme.”
Male: Well here’s a question for you. What happens when you’re using a conjunction like “neither” which separates the subjects but one subject is singular and the other is plural?
Female: Ah ha! Good question. Rule number three just like our earlier example which contained two singular subjects which are 4)conjugated differently, “Rucia and I,” the verb aGREes with which ever subject is closest.
Male: Example: The two subjects are Bill a singular...
Female: Oh no not Bill again.
Male: All right we’ll use someone else. Hillary, how about Hillary?
Female: Better.
Male: Good. If one of the subjects, Hillary is singular and the other the servants is plural, and they are separated by a conjunction which keeps them apart, then the verb gets the closest of the two subjects as in “Neither Hillary nor her servants were able to move the secretary’s limp body from the bathtub.”
Female: And were they 5)switched it would be... “Neither her servants nor Hillary was able to move the secretary’s limp body from the bathtub.”
Male: Rule number four: Expressions that imply an addition to the subject such as “as well as, including, together with, or with” may seem to change a singular subject to plural they don’t.
Female: “Tom along with Dick and Harry is going on vacation.”Get it?
Male: Got it.
Female: Good.
