Singular Plural Agreement
Singular and plural subjects should correspond with singular and plural verbs; singular and plural pronouns should correspond with the nouns they replace.
One of the most difficult aspects of singular/plural questions involves identifying the subject and/or the noun being replaced by the pronoun. Draw lines to connect pronouns and verbs to the subject they refer to.
| Singular | Plural | |
| Nouns | Person, dog, idea | People, dogs, ideas |
Collective nouns Be careful: the singular versions of these nouns are singular, even though they refer to groups. | Class, jury, group, parade, team, senate, department, army, corporation, family | Classes, juries, groups, parades, teams, senates, departments, armies, corporations, families |
Pronouns Be careful: you’ll be surprised by the italicized singular pronouns. | He, she, I, me, it, everyone, anybody, no one, every, each, none | They, them, us, we |
| Passive verbs | is, am | are, were |
Active verbs Be careful – addition of “s” varies from first person to third person | I run She runs It turns I turn | They run We run They turn We turn |
- Be careful, especially when subjects, verbs, and pronouns are separated by parenthetical phrases. Identify the subject that each verb and pronoun refers to in order see if they match.
- Also be careful with “everyone” and “no one” and other sentence constructions that seem to refer to several people or things but actually only refer to one at a time—leading to singular verbs and pronouns. Neither and Either also create singular subjects.
Practice Problems:
Singular/Plural Agreement (Verbs and Pronouns) Practice
Check the pronouns and verbs. Make sure that singular pronouns go with other singular pronouns and verbs. Plural pronouns go with other plural pronouns and verbs. Correct any mismatched pronouns.
Level 1:
- They needs to talk with the teacher.
- He talk with the other students.
- Sally and Evan talks to the police about the robbery.
- Everyone needs to bring their lunch on the fieldtrip.
- No one is alone, even when there is no one else around.
- All students must bring his or her pencils to class.
- Everyone must bring their notebook to class.
- The jury has made their decision.
- Alaska pays their employees very well.
- The entire museum, along with all of its employees, are decorated for the holiday.
Level 2:
- According to many economists, neither inflation nor unemployment are the foremost cause of increases in personal bankruptcies.
- In the nineteenth century, careers in business and law were prestigious, but it did not require practitioners to hold college degrees.
- The Portuguese musical tradition known as fado, or “fate,” has been called the Portuguese blues because of their songs that bemoan someone’s misfortune, especially the loss of romantic love.
- For the cyclist exploring Ireland’s western cliffs, every road leading out of the town of Clifden offers their own set of wonders.
- The Stegosaurus, plant-eating dinosaurs with protective bony plates and tail spikes, was once common to the area now known as Colorado and Wyoming.
- Just as parents vary in their readiness to have their children leave home for college, young people vary in his or her readiness to leave.
- The black squirrels drew a crowd of students, for it had never been seen on the campus before.
- Innovative use of computers in the classroom allows students to undertake projects that encourages them to be both analytical and intellectually adventurous.
- Many historians have written about the Constitutional Convention, but never before has the contributions of the signers been so completely analyzed.
- A curator at the science museum indicated that an unusually high percentage of their holdings results directly from funds donated to it by wealthy patrons.