Subject-Verb Agreement—The Basics
In a correctly written sentence, the subject and verb agree (match) in number. Singular subjects
have singular verbs, and plural subjects have plural verbs.
In simple sentences of few words, it’s not difficult to make the subject and verb agree:
Our baby sleeps more than ten hours a day. Some babies sleep even longer.
However, not all sentences are as straightforward as the above examples. Here are two situations
that can cause problems with subject-verb agreement.
Words Between the Subject and Verb
A verb often comes right after its subject, as in this example:
The sealed boxes belong to my brother.
However, at times the subject and verb are separated by a prepositional phrase. A prepositional
phrase is a group of words that begins with a preposition and ends with a noun or pronoun. By,
for, from, in, of, on, and to are common prepositions. Look at the following sentences:

A small bag of potato chips contains 440 calories.
o In this sentence, the subject and verb are separated by the prepositional phrase of
potato chips. The verb must agree with the singular subject bag—not the word in
the prepositional phrase.

The tomatoes in this salad are brown and mushy.
o Because the subject, tomatoes, is plural, the verb must also be plural. The
prepositional phrase in this salad has no effect on subject and verb agreement.

Books about baseball fill my son’s room.
o The plural subject books takes the plural verb fill. About baseball is a
prepositional phrase.
Compound Subjects
A compound subject is made up of two nouns connected by a joining word. Subjects joined by
and generally take a plural verb.

Running and lifting weights are good ways to keep in shape.

Fear and ignorance have a lot to do with hatred.