Subject–Verb Agreement: Ensuring Your Subjects and Verbs Harmonise

 If English grammar were a ballroom, subject and verb would be the elegant pair waltzing across the floor — synchronised, fluid, unshakably aligned. That is, until someone steps on someone else’s foot. And then chaos — grammatical chaos — ensues.

Subject–verb agreement may sound like the most well-behaved of topics, the kind that dutifully shows up on grammar tests and classroom posters. But make no mistake: beneath its prim exterior lies a hotbed of confusion, particularly for learners whose first languages don't insist on such tight choreographic precision. In English, the subject and the verb must agree in number — singular subjects take singular verbs, and plural subjects take plural verbs. It sounds straightforward enough. Alas, like all things involving humans and language, it's never that simple.

Let us begin with the most basic of examples — the kind most of us can recite even after a bad night's sleep:
“The cat sleeps.”
“The cats sleep.”

So far, so agreeable. The singular subject cat takes the singular verb sleeps. The plural cats take sleep. No drama. No confusion. But, as every teacher and learner knows, the tidy surface of subject–verb agreement is often undone by real-life sentences that have far too many accessories.

Take, for instance:
“The manager, along with her assistants, attends the meeting every Monday.”

Most English learners (and more than a few native speakers) would be tempted to write “attend”, imagining the verb must match the assistants, because they’re closer. But no — the manager is the subject. Along with her assistants is a prepositional phrase — a linguistic handbag — and handbags don’t get to lead the dance. The verb still belongs to the manager.

And this is where English gets sneaky. The rule is simple, but the sentence structures are not. English sentences are littered with distractions: intervening phrases, lists, modifiers, and clauses that can obscure the subject. Consider this gem:

“The bouquet of roses and lilies smells divine.”

Here, despite the apparent plural of roses and lilies, the subject is bouquet, singular. So we say smells, not smell. This, understandably, has baffled generations of learners, especially those whose mother tongues tie the verb to the closest noun — a syntactic habit that English will punish mercilessly.

There’s also the problem of collective nouns. These are the social butterflies of the English noun world: team, committee, audience, family. Are they singular or plural? The British, being delightfully contrary, often treat them as plural:

“The team are celebrating their win.”

Whereas American English prefers the more rigid:

“The team is celebrating its win.”

For British English users, collective nouns are plural when the group is acting as individuals (e.g. The staff are arguing among themselves) and singular when acting as a unit (e.g. The staff is united in its decision). But in practice, native speakers don’t always follow this religiously, and writers tend to lean into whichever construction feels natural in context — or simply whichever avoids an awkward clash between verb and pronoun.

Now let us pause for the perennial troublemakers: indefinite pronouns. These are words like everyone, nobody, each, and someone. They may seem vague and non-committal, but grammatically, they’re singular.

“Everyone loves a good cup of tea.”
“Each of the players is wearing new boots.”

And yet, in everyday speech, it’s not uncommon to hear “Everyone have their phones?” or “Somebody left their umbrella.” The latter is particularly interesting because it reflects a cultural shift in pronoun use. “Their” is often used as a gender-neutral singular pronoun — grammatically controversial, but now widely accepted in spoken English and increasingly tolerated in formal writing. Still, the verb must match the singular subject: “Someone has left their umbrella.” Not have.

Let us not forget compound subjects. If two subjects are joined by and, the verb is generally plural:

“My friend and colleague are attending the conference.”

But when the two subjects refer to the same person or thing, the verb stays singular:

“My friend and colleague is giving a talk on Thursday.”

Tricky? Certainly. But the rule is clear once you know where to look: it’s about whether the subject is functioning as one entity or two.

And then we have the delightful false friends: nouns that look plural but behave singularly. News, mathematics, politics — these are singular in English.

“The news is good.”
“Mathematics is difficult.”

Contrast this with words that look singular but are plural — like scissors or trousers. They take plural verbs:

“My trousers are missing.”

A sentence you may hear more often than you’d like in certain British households.

Why, then, does subject–verb agreement cause so many problems, even for advanced learners? Part of the blame lies in the mismatch between spoken and written English. In fast-paced conversation, subject–verb disagreement often slips by unnoticed. No one stops mid-chat to correct “There’s lots of people here” — a technically incorrect but widely used phrase where “There are” would be more accurate. The contraction “There’s” has become so ubiquitous, it’s practically immune to grammar policing.

But the main culprit is structure. English sentences, particularly in formal writing, often place the subject far from the verb. This distance allows uncertainty to creep in. The solution? Practice and proximity. Encourage students to find the core subject before choosing the verb. Think of it like a satnav recalculating a route — find your destination (the subject), then let the verb follow suit.

For practitioners, it helps to illustrate agreement errors with real-life examples — from signs, newspaper headlines, even political speeches. One favourite of many teachers is the much-maligned sentence:
“The list of items are on the desk.”
Here, the temptation is strong to match items with are. But the subject is list — singular — so the correct version is: “The list of items is on the desk.” Once learners see this pattern, they start spotting it everywhere. And nothing thrills a language teacher quite like a student pointing out a rogue verb on a café chalkboard.

Ultimately, subject–verb agreement is not just about correctness. It’s about clarity, rhythm, and style. It’s about making your sentences sound harmonious, purposeful — like a string quartet that knows exactly when to strike each note. And, like any good performance, it takes practice.

So the next time your sentence seems out of tune, go back to the basics. Find your subject, match your verb, and make them dance — in perfect grammatical harmony.

 

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