Stewarts corner

Guidelines to help with agreement between subjects and verbs

1. Collective nouns, such as: team, staff, family, group, company, department, division, institute etc.
The agreement here depends on whether the group referred to is a single united body, or are looked upon as individuals. Examples:
« The team is doing well this season, it is already top of the league» (one unit)
« The team are breaking up and many are looking for transfers» (individuals)
«The university senate has decided to fund these projects at NTNU» (one unit)
«The university senate are divided on this issueŠ» (individuals)

2. Agreement with nouns, not quantifiers:
With quantifiers like: A lot of All/Any Half/third/quarter Lots of Most/None of Per cent/percentage the agreement is with the noun involved, or implied, not with these words that express amounts. Thus: «All/none/some/half of the money is spent» (subject: money) «All/none/some/half of the samples are checked» (subject: samples)
«A high percentage/10% per cent (BE)/10% percent(AE) of the money is spent» (subject: money)
«A high percentage/10% per cent (BE)/10% percent(AE) of the samples are checked» (subject: samples)

When the noun is only implied, it may require some detective work to get the verb right. Examples:
«I am surprised that 70% pass a subject like that» (implied subject: students)
«It is intensive with subjects like these in one semester» (implied subject: the teaching)

3. Compound phrases:
Here agreement is with the subject, which may not be the nearest noun. Typical examples are: «The equipment required to do these types of surveys is specified in Appendix D» (subject: equipment)
«One of our clients is complaining» (subject: one client)
«The students' work was done» (subject: work)

4. Links with «and» If the words linked with «and» form one unit or entity, then there is a singular verb. If there are two or more units, then use a plural verb.
Examples: «R&D is increasing in gas injection» (one unit)
«Fish and chips is still a popular dish» (one unit)
«Both research and development are needed in gas injection» (two units)
«The high prices of fish and oven-ready chips are being passed on to customers» (two units)

5. Foreign loan words: Make sure the verbs agree with the corresponding singular and plural forms: Examples:
«The phenomenon was/the phenomena were recorded» (phenomenon (sing.) - phenomena (pl.))
«The thesis was/the theses were submitted on time» (thesis (sing.) - theses (pl.))
«The appendix contains/the appendices contain (appendix (sing.) - appendices (pl.))
Some common foreign nouns with singular and plural forms: alumnus, alumni
analysis, analyses
axis, axes
crisis, crises
criterion, criteria
curriculum, curricula
formula, formulas (or formulae)
hypothesis, hypotheses
index, indexes (or indices)
matrix, matrices
nucleus, nuclei
radius, radii
stratum, strata
syllabus, syllabuses (or syllabi)

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Ansvarlig redaktør: Informasjonsdirektør Kåre Kongsnes Teknisk ansvarlig: aina.berg@adm.ntnu.no Oppdatert: 27. Feb 1997