Agreement between subject and verb

[Inga]

Thanks a lot again. At last so much attention! Alan doesn't read my posts . I have to write him directly.
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I am an incurable optimist.

[Alan]

Hi Inga,

In answer to your question I would suggest:

Liver and onions (be) a meal detested by many children. IS (a meal)
Blue and yellow (make) green. MAKES (a mixture)
Almost every professor and student at the university (approve) of the choice of Dr. Brown as the new president APPROVES (each and every one)
Each penny, nickel, dime and quarter (count) carefully by the bank teller. IS COUNTED (each and every one)
Every day there (be) more than a dozen traffic accidents in the city. THERE IS (a dozen)
The imagery, diction, and syntax of each writer (was/were) examined. WAS (each and every bit)

In other words, singular in each case is acceptable to me. It's only when the verb comes, as it were, face to face with a plural concept that the plural seems called for. Thus: There ARE 20 accidents every week ....

Alan
_________________
English as a Second Language
You can read my ESL story Not Really

[Inga]

Oh, thank you!
_________________
I am an incurable optimist.

[nessie]

Hi Alan,
How lovely to see you here!

Blue and yellow (make) green. MAKES (a mixture)
=> Why shouldn't it be "are", sir? I think the two colour blue and yellow make the colour green...

Every day there (be) more than a dozen traffic accidents in the city. THERE IS (a dozen)
=> When I looked up on the BNC, I found only 4 results for "is a dozen" and 12 results for "are a dozen"...

[Alan]

Hi Nessie,

The point I wanted to make was that the singular use was acceptable as far as I was concerned because that seemed to be the sticking point but I wasn't ruling out the use of the plural in those sentences.

Let me illustrate:

My team are going to win - the use of 'are' suggests you know your team as a number of individuals, by name and so on.

Their team is going to lose - the use of 'is' here suggests you don't know their team but simply regard them as one unit.

Alan
_________________
English as a Foreign Language
You can read my EFL story Saying It Twice

[nessie]

=> Got it!

Thanks a lot, Alan