I recently fielded questions about two subject-verb agreement errors that readers noticed in the media. One was heard on an NPR program. The other was committed by, um, a columnist who should have ...

It’s spring cleaning time — an opportunity to sweep out dust bunnies lurking in recesses of recent reading. Let’s start with various forms of disagreement between singular and plural elements in a ...

The couple is going to purchase the house? Or the couple are going to purchase the house? Even after all my years of editing, I can still get tripped up trying to make verbs agree with collective ...

Cristian Abarzua from Chile writes: Why is it that words such as everybody are followed by the verb in the singular, e.g. Everybody needs some fun? Can this rule be applied to words such as everyone, ...

As terse as they normally are, newspaper headlines are designed to get your attention by, as much as possible, summarizing the main body text. Two words in last week’s headline of this column; ...

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 ...

Some keen-eared Radio National listeners recently took issue with the following sentence, delivered on a book review program: "There's heartbreaking scenes in Murakami's new novel." It's not that the ...

Verbs are the action words in English, and they are the heart of every sentence. Understanding how to use different verb forms correctly is essential for clear, powerful, and accurate communication, ...