I wrote this:
But now that I look at it it’s kinda suspicious. I’m wondering if I should have put:
“Certainly the most disturbing part of the process was the internal negotiations regarding how deep to dig.”
What’s the correct thing to do and why?
The problem is that the subject is singular and the object is plural, and the verb can’t agree with both. One solution is to change “negotiations” to something singular, such as “negotiation,” “debate” or “haggling”:
“Certainly the most disturbing part of the process was the internal debate regarding how deep to dig.”
Grammatically, “were”. Stylistically, neither.
Grammatically, the noun is plural (negotiations, not negotiation), so the verb must agree, and thus “were” is correct. Initial is just an adjective and has no effect on construction.
“…was the internal negotiation” would be correct, but never “…were the initial negotiation”. You can usually self-check these constructions by simplifying the sentence structure: “The negotiations were difficult” cf “The negotiations was difficult”.
Stylistically it’s a mess because you start out referring to the difficulty of a singular subject (part), but then you describe the same event as a plural object (negotiations). That is why it looks odd and doesn’t scan.
Change it to either “the most disturbing parts of the process were the internal negotiations regarding how deep to dig” or “the most disturbing stage of the process was the internal negotiation process regarding how deep to dig”. Keep the subject and all references to the subject either singular or plural.
Sure, “negotations” is a noun in the sentence. But why do you say “negotiations” is the grammatical subject and not “part”?
(Rather, why do you say “the internal negotiations regarding how deep to dig” is the subject and not “the most disturbing part of the process”? But “negotations” and “part” are the points of interest)
Actually there is no object–it’s a predicate nominative. An yes, “part” is the “subject,” but more importantly, it’s the topic of this particular sentence. So even though it’s a predicate nominative construction, you want the topic to take prominence, and it’s better to have the copula agree with that. You want to focus attention to the thing that was most disturbing, because it was so disturbing.
We use grammar; we don’t have to let it use us.
“the most disturbing part of the process” is the subject and is singular, and the verb should agree with the subject. “Negotiations” (plural) can be “a part” of a process.
Having the number of the subject and direct object disagree is perfectly acceptable, per se.
“Robinson’s four hits during today’s game were an example of hitting for the cycle.”
“The three hurricanes this season were a severe blow to the tourism industry.”
“My grades this semester were a disaster.”
If this sentence grates on you then you can simply drop the “s” on “negotiations” and I don’t think you lose meaning.
ETA: On review of guizot’s post, I readily admit my knowledge of grammar is not as technical as that analysis, but I think we are heading to the same conclusion.
Well, you learn something new every day. Here is the top Google result for “predicate nominative,” and the second example happens to be one where the number of the subject and the predicate nominative do not agree.
Wow, guys. Thank you all so much for this outpouring of verbiage. Before posting this I didn’t have any idea what a “predicate nominative” was, (still need to look it up) and I expected somebody was going to just come back with a concise “do it this way of course”; apparently I should have given my intuitive grasp of grammar more credit when it got stymied. What’s really funny is, after Indistinguishable’s post, I went back and looked at my paragraph and the very next sentence did the exact same thing:
Let’s do subjunctive mood next. EVERYBODY screws that up - so much so that it’s becoming archaic.
Well as long as the passive voice is not done.
So you move that the subjunctive be our next topic of discussion?
“Part” is the subject. Predicate must be “was”.
Remember: even rocket science isn’t rocket science. =)
Or past participles with forms different than their simple past. Born before 1980? You use them consistently. (E.g., “I had run”). Born after 1980? Not so much. (“I had ran.”)
If it were, what would we use instead?
I find that the present subjunctive, if it be used at all, is the most often dropped.
If it were, we would say “If it was …”.
To me, it depends on whether there was more than 1 negotiation regarding how deep to dig the well.
If there was only 1, then the sentecne should read:
If there was more than 1 negotiation, then the sentence shoudl read:
Either way, the verb should be singular (was) since the subject is singular (part). But if there was only 1 negotiation, you don’t pluralize the word.
If there was more than 1 negotiation, and no one in particular was the most disturbing part of the process - then it is less than optimal to say “negotiations” for the one part. It’s like a square peg in a round hole.
The negotiations were part of the process, and part of the process was the negotiations. I am the cleverest person I know, and the cleverest person that I know is me.
The verb is governed by the subject, not by the predicate.
Well dang, Darth Panda, now you got me wondering if I even used “negotiations” right. I admit it’s a bit flowery but I’ve always liked the word and it seemed like a good description of my internal mental dialogue; there were several different ill-informed-upon concerns I found myself comparing the importance of while I was out there (depth as mentioned before, impending decay, scavengers, miasma), and it was late and there was time pressure for us to be finished with the task.
Too late now anyway, I’ve already posted it.
This type of construction usually comes about from words being dropped that are necessary from a technical, semantic point of view (but not a usage/grammar point of view). We drop words all the time, such as in:
Who stole the cookie from the cookie jar?
Me!
The respondent doesn’t usually repeat the phrase that he’s responding to. He’s dropping the phrase “The person that stole the cookie was…” There’s also “My wife is the best!” which makes a lot more sense (technically) if it’s phrased “My wife is the best wife!”
In your sentence, the word that’s being dropped in a second “part”. You could (should?) say:
“Certainly the most disturbing part of the process was THE PART WITH the internal negotiations regarding how deep to dig.”
So my advice to you for when you come across a mixed singular/plural construction is to find the missing words. Figure out what you’ve naturally dropped from the sentence and see if adding it back in makes any sense.