UNIT 10 Lifestyle


4. Life pass too many people by … 5. Their staff are thus unable to check them at home.


Task 15: Read the following information about grammatical agreement.


1. What is agreement? Grammatical agreement means that words in different grammatical categories (e.g., number, person, gender or case) must have the correct relationship. For example: Tom and Tim went to visit their grandparents. (The subject is plural so the pronoun must be plural.)


2. Why do I make this mistake?


English does not have much agreement, unlike some languages. As such, it may be something that you do not think about very much, meaning that when agreement is needed, you might forget and make a mistake.


3. What are the basic rules I need to know?


1. Subjects and verbs must agree with each other in number. This is often forgotten with regard to third-person s. For example: Sally walks to school every day. (The subject is third-person singular, so the verb ends in an s.)


2. Some verbs in the third-person present simple are very irregular. The verb to be is also irregular in the first and second person. For example: He is; She has; It does; Sam goes; I am; We are; You are.


3. Some verbs in the third-person present simple take es, not s. This happens when the verbs end in a ‘sibilant’ sound (sh, ch, ss, zz). For example: He brushes; She marches; It passes; Sam buzzes.


4. Singular indefinite pronouns require a singular verb, i.e., each, either, neither, one, no one, nobody, nothing, anyone, anybody, anything, someone, somebody, something, everyone, everybody, everything. For example: Somebody is calling you. Anything is possible.


5. Plural indefinite pronouns require a plural verb, i.e., several, few, both, many. For example: Both are available. Many are called; few are chosen.


6. Group nouns may be singular or plural depending on how they are used in the sentence. A group noun is a noun which refers to a group of people, animals or things (e.g., army, audience, committee, enemy, gang, group, herd, media, public, staff and team). They can be thought of either as singular or plural ideas; this is then reflected by the verb which follows. For example: The company is/are expanding. The government was/were voted out. My family has/have been living there.


7. Words must agree in gender when they are related to each other. Although this is not very common in English, there are occasions when words which are specifically male/ female must be followed by, for example, male/female pronouns. This is also the case with words which are neutral (i.e., neither male nor female). For example: The man arrived at his office. My mother went to her class. The train arrived at its destination.


8. Sums of money and periods of time use a singular verb. Even though the noun used may be pluralized, the verb should be singular. For example: Twenty pounds is expensive for a ticket. Three months is a long time to be away.


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