CHAPTER 3
Ambiguous Agreements
One of the most common mistakes people make when they’re putting together a sentence is to choose forms of words that don’t agree with each other. When we say “agree” here, we mean that the words have to correspond in both person and number. “Agreeing in person” means that a first-person noun such as “I” needs a first-person verb such as “am” to make its life complete (rather than a third-person verb like “are”). “Agreeing in number” means that a singular subject such as “lobster” would like nothing better than to settle down with a singular verb such as “is” (rather than a plural verb such as “are”).
Most sentences present few problems with agreement; we don’t have to think about it much. If you grew up speaking ...
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