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Book-Specific Resources / 20 Most Common Errors / Error #14 
The subject is the singular noun part, not goals. 
Here, the subject is the plural noun goals, not life. If a subject has two or more parts connected by and, the subject is almost always plural. 
If a subject has two or more parts joined by or or nor, the verb should agree with the part nearest to the verb. 
Here, the noun closest to the verb is a singular noun. If this construction sounds awkward, consider the next edit. 
Now the noun closest to the verb is a plural noun, and the verb agrees with it. Collective nouns such as committee and jury can be treated as singular or plural, depending on whether they refer to a single unit or multiple individuals. 
Most indefinite pronouns such as each, either, neither or one are always singular and take a singular verb. The indefinite pronouns both, few, many, others and several are always plural and take plural verb forms. Several indefinite pronouns (all, any, enough, more, most, none, some) can be singular or plural depending on the context in which they are used. 
The relative pronouns who, which or that take verbs that agree with the word the pronoun refers to. 
Check your draft for subject-verb agreement problems by circling each sentence's subject and drawing a line with an arrow to that subject's verb. You should be able to do this for each sentence. A verb must agree with its subject in number and in person. In many cases, the verb must take a form depending on whether the subject is singular or plural: The old man is angry and stamps into the house, but The old men are angry and stamp into the house. Lack of subject-verb agreement is often just a matter of leaving the -s ending off the verb out of carelessness, or of using a form of English that does not have this ending. Sometimes, however, this error results from particular sentence constructions. For practice recognizing and editing this error, go to Exercise Central. |
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