Subject-Verb Agreement: Or/nor
While subject-verb agreement rules can feel very intuitive to English speakers, writers often get tripped up by longer, more complex sentences. Sometimes the subject of the sentence is difficult to identify, and other times the structure of the sentence is impacting the rules of agreement. Today’s guide for editing your own writing pertains to sentences where a compound subject contains or/nor.
A compound subject includes multiple nouns or pronouns that are “doing” the action in a sentence, and they are always joined by a coordinating conjunction. For example: Kittens and puppies are cute. Felicity and I got married. Of course, the verb is plural when the coordinating conjunction is and (unless the two nouns make up a single object or concept). When a compound subject contains or/nor, the verb agrees with the element closest to it. This is called the rule of proximity.
Let’s break down some examples:
Neither Tilly nor her mom is allergic to cats.
When two singular nouns joined by or make up the compound subject, the verb should also be singular.
The pitcher, the catcher, or the fielders throw the ball to the umpire at the end of the inning.
This sentence has three nouns joined by or: the pitcher (singular), the catcher (singular), and the fielders (plural). The noun closest to the verb is plural, and so the verb should also be plural.
Neither the artists nor the gallery owner was expecting to give a speech at the opening.
Since nor joins the artists (plural) and the gallery owner (singular), the singular verb agrees with the noun that appears closest to it.
Either my roommates or my neighbors, who also have cats of their own, feed my cat when I’m out of town.
In this sentence, or joins two plural nouns: my roommates and my neighbors. The verb should also be plural. This sentence has a nonrestrictive clause inserted right before the verb, but that does not change the subject-verb agreement rules.
Has either Juan or his parents called to schedule an appointment?
The subject and verb are inverted because this is a question. Even when the verb comes first in a sentence with a compound subject containing or, the verb will agree with the nearest noun (in this case, singular Juan).
As long as you practice identifying the subjects of sentences, this construction will jump right out at you. You’ll hear English speakers break this rule in speech and casual discourse all the time, and there’s nothing wrong with that. In fact, I’d occasionally keep this kind of error in certain characters’ spoken dialogue in a fiction manuscript to give their voice more authenticity. But this is still considered an error in formal written English. Most importantly, it does usually aid comprehension to follow the rule of proximity in writing. And that’s what good editing is all about.
For more information about subject-verb agreement, I recommend the Word Matters podcast episode. For more information about notional agreement and the rule of proximity, I recommend this article from Merriam-Webster.
