✍️ English & Grammar · Chapter 1

Subject-verb agreement

Almost every agreement error comes from matching the verb to the nearest noun instead of the actual subject.

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The basics

Subject-verb agreement means the verb matches its subject in number: a singular subject takes a singular verb (the job runs), a plural subject takes a plural verb (the jobs run).

The problem it solves: readers use agreement to track who is doing what. When it breaks — "the list of failed events are growing" — the sentence still makes sense, but it reads as careless, and in a CV, PR description or incident report that small cost lands with people who know nothing else about you.

The mental model: the verb must agree with the subject — the thing the sentence is about — not with whichever noun happens to sit closest to the verb. Almost every error comes from a plural noun in a phrase like of the events parking itself right before the verb. So: find the subject, cross out everything between it and the verb, and re-read.

Explained

~~The list of failed events are growing.~~

The list of failed events is growing.

The subject is list, not events. The words in between are scenery.

One habit fixes most of this topic: cross out everything between the subject and the verb, then read it again.

The queue at the counter

One person walks up to a counter carrying twelve passports for a family.

The clerk serves one person. The twelve passports do not make it twelve customers — they are what the person is holding.

English works the same way. In "a list of failed events", the subject at the counter is list. "of failed events" is what it's carrying.

The plural noun sitting closest to the verb is almost always the luggage, not the customer.

The rules that cover 90% of errors

1. Prepositional phrases don't change the subject.

The quality of the records is poor. (not are)

A set of tests runs nightly.

2. "Each", "every", "either", "neither", "one of" are singular.

Each of the pipelines has its own schedule.

Neither of the consumers was committing offsets.

*3. With "or" / "nor", the verb matches the nearer subject.*

Neither the producer nor the consumers were at fault.

Neither the consumers nor the producer was at fault.

4. "And" makes it plural — unless the two nouns are one thing.

The engineer and the analyst were consulted.

Bread and butter is on the table. (one dish)

5. Collective nouns take a singular verb when acting as one unit.

The team is shipping on Friday.

6. "There is/are" agrees with what follows it.

There are three failures in the log.

There is one failure in the log.

Cross out the scenery

The technique is the whole lesson. Distance between subject and verb is what causes the error — so remove the distance.

Pick the verb

1. Neither of the two consumers ___ (was / were) committing offsets.
2. The number of failed rows ___ (is / are) rising.
3. A number of failed rows ___ (is / are) rising.
4. Twenty percent of the data ___ (is / are) missing.
5. Twenty percent of the records ___ (is / are) missing.

Why it matters in a technical career

You will write far more than you expect: pull request descriptions, incident summaries, design documents, Slack updates read by people three levels above you.

A sentence with an agreement error is still understandable. But it costs you a small amount of credibility each time — and in writing that circulates (a postmortem, a design doc, a CV) small costs accumulate with strangers who have no other information about you.

The reverse is the real opportunity: clear writing is rare among engineers, so it is disproportionately rewarded. A postmortem that reads cleanly gets read by more senior people, and being read is how work becomes visible.

Cross out everything between the subject and the verb, then read it again.

Each / every / neither / one of → singular.

"The number" is singular. "A number of" is plural.

Gotchas

• Matching the nearest noun — the single biggest cause
• "Each of the X have" — always has
• "There's three things" — spoken everywhere, wrong in writing. There are
• Inverted sentences — Attached are the logs (subject is logs, and it comes after the verb)
• "Every" with a compound — Every producer and consumer needs monitoring, because every distributes singularly
• Being inconsistent about "data" — either is defensible; switching mid-document is not

Words to know

In two minutes

• The verb agrees with the subject, not with the noun nearest to it.
• Cross out everything between the subject and the verb — prepositional phrases and clauses — then re-read.
• Each, every, either, neither, one of and 'the number of' take singular verbs; 'a number of' takes plural.
• 'And' makes a plural subject; with 'or' / 'nor' the verb matches the nearer subject.
• 'Along with', 'as well as' and 'together with' are scenery — they don't make a subject plural.
• With percentages and fractions, the noun after 'of' decides; in 'there is/are' and inverted sentences, the subject comes after the verb.
• Read important writing aloud — your ear tracks the subject better than your eye.

Test yourself

There are 8 questions, 3 puzzles and 6 recall cards for this lesson in the app — the recall cards come back on later days, just before you would forget.