WEBVTT 00:00:00.720 --> 00:00:04.400 Hi everybody, my name is Heather and I am  a sophomore Business Management major here 00:00:04.400 --> 00:00:08.080 at Lake Superior State University.  I also work at the Writing Center 00:00:08.080 --> 00:00:12.160 on campus and today I will be covering  the basics of subject verb agreement. 00:00:15.200 --> 00:00:18.480 To start off we're gonna give a little  bit of an overview; the expected content 00:00:18.480 --> 00:00:21.520 in the video is just how to make subjects  and verbs agree within your writing here, 00:00:22.080 --> 00:00:24.960 and so what's going to be addressed are  the basics that you need to know to make 00:00:24.960 --> 00:00:28.880 your subjects and verbs agree. This will take  a little bit of time to learn so don't really 00:00:28.880 --> 00:00:33.600 stress about it if you can't understand it  right at the beginning. The first basics are 00:00:33.600 --> 00:00:37.840 that if you have a singular subject, you have  to make sure that you are using a singular verb. 00:00:37.840 --> 00:00:42.880 So the example given here is "The girl eats  her food." Now, if you have a plural subject, 00:00:42.880 --> 00:00:47.840 you must make sure that that plural subject  has a plural verb. So I used the same sentence, 00:00:47.840 --> 00:00:52.240 just a different subject, instead of "girl" I  used "girls", so, "The girls eat their food." 00:00:53.680 --> 00:00:59.600 Now some more basics are if you have two or more  singular nouns that are connected by "or" or "nor" 00:00:59.600 --> 00:01:04.960 you're going to have to use a singular verb. So  for an example, "The knife or spoon is in the 00:01:04.960 --> 00:01:09.360 drawer" is a singular verb there even though  there are two subjects that are connected by 00:01:09.360 --> 00:01:15.680 "or". Now if there's a compound subject with both  a singular and a plural noun joined by "or" or 00:01:15.680 --> 00:01:22.320 "nor" you're gonna make the subject agree with  the verb that is closest to it. So basically, 00:01:22.320 --> 00:01:26.480 "The girl or her buddies run every day"  -- now "buddies" is the one closest to 00:01:26.480 --> 00:01:30.400 the verb which is why you're using a plural  verb, because "buddies" is a plural subject. 00:01:31.840 --> 00:01:35.920 Some more basics: this is a little bit confusing  so make sure you kind of pay attention here; 00:01:36.480 --> 00:01:42.000 do not be misled by a phrase that comes between  the subject and the verb! So remember the verb 00:01:42.000 --> 00:01:47.040 agrees with the subject and not the noun in  the phrase. So "One of the cans is open" is 00:01:47.040 --> 00:01:51.360 an example here. The phrase would be "of the  cans" -- you're not going to look at "cans", 00:01:51.360 --> 00:01:54.800 you're actually going to look at "one" for  your subject because that is singular so you 00:01:54.800 --> 00:01:59.760 can use a singular verb. Another one is "The  lady with all the cats rides in her car." 00:01:59.760 --> 00:02:06.080 You're going to use "lady" as your subject and not  "cats." Now some subjects that require singular 00:02:06.080 --> 00:02:10.800 verbs that you might need to memorize are "each,"  "each one," "either," "neither," "everyone," 00:02:10.800 --> 00:02:16.320 "everybody," "anyone," "anybody," "nobody,"  "someone," "somebody," and "no one." Some 00:02:16.320 --> 00:02:22.400 examples here are "either option is correct"  or "each of these steaks is juicy." Now, 00:02:22.400 --> 00:02:27.600 there are nouns of singular verbs. These words  will require the use of a singular verb. Some 00:02:27.600 --> 00:02:33.920 examples include "civic/economics," "mathematics,"  "dollars," :measles," and "news." So the example 00:02:33.920 --> 00:02:39.040 here would be, "Economics is my favorite subject  in school." Now economics, even though it ends 00:02:39.040 --> 00:02:42.960 with an 's', it's not a plural thing which is  why you use the singular subject and verb here. 00:02:44.320 --> 00:02:48.480 Now there is a special case with the word  "dollars" that we just mentioned previously here; 00:02:48.480 --> 00:02:52.960 when you're talking about an amount of  money you need to use a singular verb. 00:02:52.960 --> 00:02:58.880 So right here, an example here would be, "Ten  dollars is a lot of money for someone my age." 00:02:58.880 --> 00:03:03.040 "Ten dollars" -- we're talking about amount of  money which is why we're using a singular verb. 00:03:03.600 --> 00:03:06.720 Now when you're talking about dollars  themselves, you're going to use a plural verb. 00:03:07.280 --> 00:03:11.360 "Dollars are often used when buying  groceries" -- now you're talking about it 00:03:11.360 --> 00:03:15.040 as dollars themselves which is why we're  going to use "are" which is a plural verb. 00:03:16.560 --> 00:03:20.880 Now certain sentence beginnings call for  certain agreement. An example here would be, 00:03:20.880 --> 00:03:26.480 "There are many ways to do that" or "There is  a leaf on the ground." These call for certain 00:03:26.480 --> 00:03:31.200 agreements because in a sentence that starts  with "there is" or "there are," the subject 00:03:31.200 --> 00:03:35.360 follows the verb. So in those examples you can  see that the subject is following the verb here. 00:03:36.960 --> 00:03:40.080 When dealing with collective  nouns, you have to think about 00:03:40.080 --> 00:03:44.240 what you're talking about here, which would be  singular, which means there are singular verbs. 00:03:44.240 --> 00:03:48.960 Some collective nouns include "group," "team," and  "family." Now there are plural things in a group, 00:03:48.960 --> 00:03:54.560 like there are multiple people in a group, but  the group itself means it's just a singular thing. 00:03:54.560 --> 00:03:58.160 So here would be, "The team has a long winning  record"; there are multiple people on the team 00:03:58.160 --> 00:04:03.840 but the team is one singular thing. Now we do  hope this helps. If there are any questions, 00:04:03.840 --> 00:04:06.720 you can always come to the Writing  Center -- we can help you out!