I recently fielded questions about two subject-verb agreement errors that readers noticed in the media.

A singular subject like “cat” pairs with a different verb form than a plural subject like “cats.” That’s plain old agreement. Nothing notional about it.

Subject-verb agreement means that your verb must be conjugated, or changed, to fit (or agree) with the subject. Subjects can be singular or plural. Think of singular and plural as mathematical ...

As a result, the singular-for singular, plural-for-plural subject-verb agreement rule may become challenged. Consider words such as couple, class, community, society and family: The class is large ...

You need to choose a singular form of the verb to match the singular subject. Look at the table below to see how play is used with different subjects. Most verbs follow the same pattern as this verb.

The sentence supposedly violated grammatical agreement (sometimes called subject-verb agreement). Because scenes is a plural noun, the reasoning runs, the verb in the sentence should be plural, too.

You need to choose a singular form of the verb to match the singular subject. Look at the table below to see how play is used with different subjects. Most verbs follow the same pattern as this verb.

Yet, care must be taken in practicalising this principle because the calculation will change if you have a plural noun close to the verb – as the law of proximity knocks out the singular verb.