By Plurals, Singular verbs

Re: Transformation of sentence

Raju's friends were not at the concert nor was Raju himself.1. Neither Raju's friends nor Raju was at the concert.2. Neither Raju nor his friends were at the concert. Kooyeen wrote: ... the vast majority of native speakers would find #2 much more natural because the plural verb in #2...

Re: was or were

http://www.bartleby.com/68/47/4047.html: Neither is paired with nor as either is with or, and in those uses as conjunctions they pose usage problems of agreement. Usually they will take a singular verb if both parts of the structure are singular, as in Neither he nor his friend is ready, and if...

Re: Two years is a long time

Pter, We were taught early on in basic grammar that “many” suggest more than 1 and therefore plural verb should be used. Yes, it’s true, but not always. Sometimes the rules seem to be illusively bent, depending on the context. 5 miles one way is too far to walk to school. – singular verb is...

Please explain the usage of verb in these cases

Our 80 years of collective experience help to deliver unrivaled quality in providing real estate and infrastructure services for the years to come.As in the above sentence verb ‘help’ is correct, what about the following sentences: Our clients need a business partner with world-class expertise ...

Re: plural or singular verb in neither/nor

In the use of 'neither ...nor', the verb has to follow the preceding noun closest to the verb, so 'Neither the Company nor the Subsidiaries have...', as 'have' must agree with the noun 'Subsidiaries', but when you have 'any of the Subsidiaries', the subject...

correct this please

Hi, Please correct this. Is the comma before 'ready' OK? Hi, I hope you all had very relaxing holidays and are back in your work places, ready to work on new assignments... Our thanks go (goes??) to John Doe for his remarkable work on making sure every sector of our company works to its...

Re: has / have

It's the same in BrE; either a singular or a plural verb can be used after 'family'. My family was/were in Orchard Road last Sunday.

Re: has / have

You need some sort of determiner before "meal." In the U.S., we generlaly use a singular verb for family, but would still use "their" in the plural. The dining area is where the family has/eats their meals.

Re: Only 2 yards of cloth is/are cut off. (?)

Hi, I have something I really need to ask. It's about some tricky usage of singular and plural verbs. I hope you could please check out these sentence for me and see which verb should be used. My grammar books all fail to give me an answer, so I come here for your help. Only 2 yards of...

Re: banana tree / plant

Hi Fruit is a collective noun taking a singular verb: Fruit is good for you. Eat plenty of fruit and vegetables. The tree bears fruit (not fruits). The plural fruits is used in talking about different types of fruit: oranges, apples and other fruits. The plural form fruits is rarely used and...