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Hi.
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Welcome to engVid.
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I'm Adam.
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In today's video we're going to
look at the "Compound Subject".
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So this is a grammar lesson, and it doesn't
matter if you're a beginner or advanced, it's
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very important to understand this because
it's very easy to make mistakes, especially
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in writing.
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So, we're going to start
by looking at the subject.
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What is a subject?
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Just to refresh our memories.
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The subject is the thing in the sentence or
in the clause that is going to do the action
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or is going to be in the situation of the
"be" verb, if it's not an action verb.
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Right?
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So...
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And we always have to make sure that
our subject and our verb agree.
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They must agree, especially
in terms of number.
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If you have a singular subject,
you must have a singular verb.
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Right?
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So let's look at this example:
"The doctor is off this week."
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Right?
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So when we're talking about the doctor, there's
one doctor, his or her situation is that he
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or she is off this week.
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They're on vacation.
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Right?
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So we have a singular verb.
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Now, we're going to look at compounds in terms
of taking two pieces and making one subject
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out of this...
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Out of the two
individual pieces.
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We're going to look at "and" and we're going
to look at "or", "either", "or", "neither",
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"nor".
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Okay?
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But we're going to look at "or" after,
we're going to start with "and".
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First thing you need to remember about
"and", it works like a plus sign.
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One plus one equals two.
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So, when you take two individual subjects
and you join them together, you're creating
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a two-or-more situation, or a two-or-more
subject, therefore you have a plural subject.
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Right?
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So: "The doctor and the nurse are off",
so plural, whereas you had singular.
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Now, it doesn't matter if
you have plural pieces.
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"The doctor and the nurse are", "The doctors and
the nurse are", "The doctors and the nurses
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are", any combination because you're joining
them into a group and now they are plural
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and you have a matching verb.
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Now, it's very important to remember that
we're talking about compounds and we're using
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a compound conjunction, but
if you use: "The doctors"...
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Well, let's just say
"doctor", no "s".
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"The doctor as well as the nurses are
off this week", would this be correct?
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No, it would not because
you're not making a compound.
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This is an extra.
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Okay?
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"The doctor", but if you had: "The doctors
as well as the nurses are off this week",
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that is correct because then you would
still have a plural to a plural.
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Singular, with "as
well as", singular.
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Plural with "as
well as", plural.
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Now: "as well as", "along with", "together with",
"accompanied by", all of these expressions
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are not compound conjunctions.
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So we only have a compound subject when we
have a compound conjunction joining them.
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Okay?
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But there are situations where you're going to
have a compound, but you still have a singular
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subject.
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"Spaghetti and meatballs
is delicious", not "are".
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Why is this singular?
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Because this is a grouped
thing, they always go together.
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Spaghetti and meatballs
is one idea.
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Even though you're joining them,
they are basically one item.
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"Peanut butter and jelly is my favourite snack",
or "Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches are
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my favourite snack", but then
you're using it as an adjective.
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If it's one piece, if it's a
collective, then it's singular.
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If it's two separate items, then you're
making a compound and then you have a plural.
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Look at this one: "The founder and CEO of
the company is ready to sell", "The founder
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and CEO of the company
are ready to sell".
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Now, which of these is correct?
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Well, both can be correct.
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You can have one person who is both the founder
of the company and the CEO of the company.
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So if this and this refer to the same person, then
it's a singular subject and you're using "is".
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If the founder and the CEO are two different
people, then you're creating a compound, you
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have a plural, and then you
have "are" as correct.
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So it's very important to understand what
the two pieces on either side of "and" are
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doing.
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Are they two separate things,
or are they one combined thing?
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And then you'll know which...
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If it's a plural or
a singular subject.
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I'm going to give you some more examples after so
you'll get an idea, but first let's look at "or".
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Okay, let's look at the
compound conjunction: "or".
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"Or", "nor".
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Okay?
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"Neither Tom nor his sister likes to cook",
"Neither Tom nor his sisters like to cook".
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Okay?
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Basically what you have to remember about
"or" or "nor" is that the verb will agree
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with the last part
of the compound.
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So, if the second part is singular,
the verb will match singular.
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If the second noun is plural,
the verb will match plural.
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So: "sisters like", "sister
likes", same with "or".
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So here's a situation...
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Oh, I forgot an "r" here.
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"Either Jill or Kevin
needs to be let go."
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So, I'm a company, I need to make some cuts
in the budget, I need to fire one of these
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people because they're
too expensive.
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Their salary is too high.
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So: "Either Jill or Kevin
needs to be let go."
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Singular or singular, "needs".
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"Either Jill or the marketing
team needs to go."
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Now, "team" is a singular.
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Although there's a lot of...
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There are a lot of people in the team, the
team, the whole collective needs to be let
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go because they...
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All of them make as
much money as she does.
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"Either Jill or three junior managers need
to be let go", so now I have a plural here,
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and therefore I have a plural
verb to agree with it.
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So always go with the last or the second noun
in the compound subjects when you have "or"
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or "nor".
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"And", as soon as you're joining two
separate things, you have a plural.
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"Or" depends on the second
noun of the compound.
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Okay?
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You're going to understand this a little bit
more with some more examples, so let's get
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to those.
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Okay, I want to mention a few other things
about the compound subjects before we go,
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and I'm going to look
at some more examples.
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First of all: "Bill and I
are going to see a movie."
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Bill's one person, I'm
another, together we are two.
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Now, if you're not sure about the compound,
if you're not sure if it's separate things
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or if it's one thing, try to
replace it with a pronoun.
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So if I say: "Bill and I", I
can replace this with "we".
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So as soon as you have the "we" pronoun you
understand you need the "are", not the "is".
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So always try to replace your
compound with a pronoun.
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If you can't, it means
it's probably one thing.
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Right?
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It's probably "it".
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So I'm going to look
at another example.
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Now: "I and Bill are
going to see a movie."
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Technically this is correct, but people don't usually
put the "I" first, they put the "Bill" first.
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"Bill and I are going to see", and
you'll rarely hear: "I and Bill".
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Why?
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I'm not exactly sure.
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They're both correct, but common
usage is to put the "I" second.
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On the other hand: "Bill and she are going
to see a movie", "She and Bill are going to
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see a movie".
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More common: "She"
first", "Bill" second.
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But, again, both are correct, you
can use either one at your leisure.
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"I" generally second
in most cases.
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Now, let's look at this sentence: "Heather's
mother-in-law and dad are spending time together."
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Okay?
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"Heather's mother-in-law", one person, "dad",
second person, together they make two, they
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are spending.
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Now: "Heather's mother-in-law and dad", you
must understand that "dad" is Heather's dad,
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not the mother-in-law's dad.
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If I said: "Heather's mother-in-law and her
dad", then it becomes a little bit confusing,
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because whose dad?
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Because there are
two women here.
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Right?
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If ever you are not sure when you're putting
the two items of a subject together, rearrange
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it to make it more clear.
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"Heather's dad and
mother-in-law are going".
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It's very clear that the dad is
Heather's, not the mother-in-law's.
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Okay?
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Just to keep that in mind in terms
of positioning the compounds.
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"Winning and losing
is a mindset."
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Winning and losing
are one thing.
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When you're playing sports or whatever,
winning and losing is part of the game.
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They're not two separate things.
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But wins or losses, these
are countable things.
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You can actually count wins, you can count
losses, therefore they are two separate things.
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So sometimes the connections
are not very clear.
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If they're not very clear,
change the sentence around.
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Right?
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"It is a mindset whether
you win or lose."
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Right?
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And then it's a whole different sentence,
there's no confusion, and it's one thing.
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"Mindset" is the subject,
instead of the other two.
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Here it's very clear, so you can leave it
alone: "Wins or losses do not", not "does
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not" because I have plural, plural,
and a second one is plural.
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"10 successes or 1 failure
amount to the same thing".
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"1 failure"-oh, sorry, my mistake-"amounts to
the same thing", because you have the second
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one is a singular.
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"1 failure or 10 successes
amount to the same thing."
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Okay?
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In my mind I wrote it
the other way around.
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So, second one is singular, singular;
second one is plural, plural.
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Okay?
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Now, keep in mind sometimes you
have collective nouns as subjects.
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Don't confuse collective nouns, like: "the
police", "the staff", "the team", that's a
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different thing from
a compound noun.
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There is a video about collective nouns, you
can look in the description box of this video
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and you will find a link to it.
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Make sure you separate the two things, and
you'll understand how those work, and how
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compound subjects work, and how to
agree with the verb in any situation.
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If you have any questions, please go to
www.engvid.com, you can ask me there in the forum.
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There's also a quiz, you can practice
your understanding of compound subjects.
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Don't forget to subscribe to my YouTube
channel, and I'll see you again soon. Bye-bye.
