ShmoopTube
Where Monty Python meets your 10th grade teacher.
Search Thousands of Shmoop Videos
Subject Verb Agreement 11380 Views
Share It!
Description:
Want even more deets on Subject Verb Agreement? Click here to review. Or take a look at our entire grammar section for all the goods.
Transcript
- 00:00
Thank you We sneak in subject verb agreement allah way
- 00:07
get into disagreements with other people over all sorts of
- 00:10
silly things like whether a room is too hot or
- 00:12
too cold or whether a particular restaurant has great food
- 00:16
or terrible food or whether or not the third godfather
Full Transcript
- 00:19
movie is worth even watching that and subjects in verbs
- 00:24
on the other hand find it easy to agree All
- 00:27
it takes is for a singular noun to match up
- 00:30
with a singular verb and a plural noun to match
- 00:33
up with a player over Got it for example say
- 00:36
we have the sentence I am a really good cook
- 00:39
The word i is a singular now so it needs
- 00:42
the singular verb And now say we change our example
- 00:46
to read way are really good cooks The word we
- 00:51
is a plural noun so it needs the power over
- 00:53
our way Are the world like that Wow easy right
- 00:58
This has to be the shortest grammar lesson ever But
- 01:01
wait there's more Some downs can be tricky leaving us
- 01:04
unsure it toa whether their singular or plural noun For
- 01:08
example take the word everyone if we're talking about everyone
- 01:12
At a professional football game Then we could be referring
- 01:15
to tens of thousands of people Me and though the
- 01:18
number of people were referring to doesn't matter grammar rules
- 01:21
is everyone and its compatriots Everybody anyone anybody no one
- 01:28
and nobody Our singular noun that require singular verbs got
- 01:34
that So you treat everybody's whole mass of people football
- 01:37
game as one thing Thank you Everyone at the game
- 01:41
in green bay is freezing because everyone is a singular
- 01:44
noun We match it with the singular verb is or
- 01:49
say we have the scent No one at the game
- 01:51
in houston is freezing because no one is singular Now
- 01:54
we match it with the singular verb is phantom pains
- 01:58
and team names are usually plural Although some people prefer
- 02:01
to treat group names that sound plural as plural and
- 02:05
group names that sound singular as singular So if we
- 02:08
ever over here a customer of a restaurant say matchbox
- 02:11
twenty makes great music where the band named matchbox twenty
- 02:15
is treated as a singular rather than plural well try
- 02:19
not to wig out Plenty of people talk this way
- 02:22
are this way Come on and the world hasn't come
- 02:26
To an end now we come to collective now while
- 02:29
a word like family may cover a lot of people
- 02:31
collective noun czar usually treated a singular now for example
- 02:35
say we have the sentence in the school orchestra plays
- 02:39
its spring concert tonight Yeah we did that The school
- 02:42
orchestra just treated is like one singular thing It doesn't
- 02:46
matter that the orchestra may consist of one hundred very
- 02:48
nervous teenagers with temples We know you were talking about
- 02:52
you because orchestra is a collective noun It is treated
- 02:56
as a singular noun and is therefore match with the
- 02:58
singular verb plays it plays What if we have the
- 03:02
sense of the football team run sprints during practice Well
- 03:05
we don't care how hot and tired all those football
- 03:07
players are Because team is a collective noun it is
- 03:10
treated as a singular noun and so we match it
- 03:13
with singular verbs like runs The team runs runs all
- 03:19
right upon occasion Some collective noun can be plural if
- 03:22
the people covered by the noun have a sense of
- 03:24
individuality like the married couple are spending some quality time
- 03:29
apart because it's clear that the couple were talking about
- 03:32
consists of two people who aren't currently speaking to each
- 03:35
other We match the collective known couple with the plural
- 03:39
verb are we could just as easily use the word
- 03:42
couple is a singular now like a couple of right
- 03:45
say we have the sense each couple is attending therapy
- 03:48
with a different counselor Well in this case couples are
- 03:50
being spoken of as units which is why we match
- 03:53
the collective and singular noun couple with the singular verb
- 03:58
is grammar rule for collective noun may seem overly complicated
- 04:02
Don't worry given how big the rule is It's hard
- 04:04
to be truly wrong here fit for subject verb agreement
- 04:08
just remember that singular noun school with singular berg plural
- 04:11
noun go with poor over and singular words that cover
- 04:14
a lot of people like everyone and symphony gets singular
- 04:17
verb big things really like one Isn't it nice when
- 04:20
there's a grammar rule that's virtually impossible toe disagree over 00:04:24.202 --> [endTime] Yeah you like that Yeah dead
Related Videos
This video explains the difference between affect and effect and provide tips for remembering which is which and when to use each one. If you suffe...
Want even more deets on Question Marks? Click here to review. Or take a look at our entire grammar section for all the goods.
Want even more deets on Your vs. You're? Click here to review. Or take a look at our entire grammar section for all the goods.
What’s the difference between its and it’s (spoiler alert: it’s more than just an apostrophe). This video covers the use of both of these wor...