A friend of mine is writing a book… The king and queen used to fight with each other a lot, but always made peace. But now they’re both dead.
“There were no more king of queen to reconcile with one another.”
Were? Was? My ear tells me “was” but my head tells me “were.”
It is impossible to be certain without some immediate context for that sentence, but by the look of it that is a subjunctive, and so should indeed be “were”.
ignore this post
Assuming Indistinguishable is right and it’s “king or queen” then it looks like past indicative to me and is ‘was’.
Well, the simple way is default to plural where its unclear.
An unknown number is best assumed to be plural.
A hypothetical event also called for plural. Its hypothetical that there were any …
Its important… An internationally famous song got it wrong…
It should be “I wish I were a punk singer with flowers in my hair”.
“were” because its hypothetical, its just a wish !
The song makes it clear she wishes to combine 69 and 73 into one, with the idea that the combined strength would cause an actual revolution.
This is the post I had written, before deciding I would edit to respond to njtt first, which I then ended up losing the edit window on:
In general, go with your ear… It knows best. Very few people know explicitly “in their head” as much about the grammar of their native language as they know implicitly “in their ear”.
Why does your head suggest “were” anyway?
(Also, I presume “king of queen” should read “king or queen”?)
And this is what I was going to say to njtt:
There’s no subjunctive in sight, njtt, and besides, you can perfectly well use “was” for (the irrealis that people often call) the subjunctive (“If I was rich, …” is just as acceptable as “If I were rich, …”; the legitimacy of one doesn’t exclude that of the other).
Bleh, too much editing for me for now… I’ll come back to this thread when I have more time
There was a boy.
There were a boy and a girl.
There was neither a boy nor a girl in the room.
There were no children in the room.
There were no more king and queen to reconcile with one another.
There was neither king nor queen left alive to mourn the other.
(if you’re not certain they’re dead)
If there was a king or queen left alive, we could have more cake.
(if you’re certain they’re dead)
If there were a king or queen left alive, we could have more cake.
Sometimes, I have a tin ear… 
I keep thinking of “king or queen” as a plural. As in “Where were the king or queen?” rather than “Where was the king or queen?” I can see how “no more” might be the subject, rather than “king or queen,” but if that case you’d also have to say “There was no more kings or queens,” and that sounds horrible!
Is it a variant of Gaudere’s Law, that a post asking for grammar assistance will have errors in it? Aye, king or queen. (Not “King of Queens.”)
I’m old-fashioned enough that “If I was rich” sounds wrong, and I’d use “If I were rich.” But, yes, you’re right, the sentence doesn’t involve a subjunctive.
Well, that’s why we killed her, innit? She told us we could eat cake, di’nshe? So we cut orf 'er ead, di’nwe?
Anyway, this seems right…but it still “sounds” wrong. But I think I’ll tell my friend that “were” is right.
Thank you both and everyone! What a language!
Hm. I’ve come to feel that both choices are probably fine, analogously to how in, say, “Neither <subject1> nor <subject2> <verb>…”, you can find in frequent use in the wild the verb conjugated for either singular or plural subject according to the whims of the speaker. (Go ahead; Google “Neither Obama nor Romney is” and “Neither Obama nor Romney are”)
It’s an interesting question, though; perhaps someone else knows more than me about the conditions governing this particular niche of English speakers’ habits.
The whole thing looks clunky to me.
reconcile with one another - surely this is bad grammar. Two people are reconciled. “each other” is redundant.
Perhaps: With no king and no queen, there could be no reconciliation.
Was is correct. King or queen is the subject and that’s singular in this context.
I agree with the others that it is a horribly clunky construction. As an editor, I tend to apply the rule that if I am confused about which word is required in a sentence, then the whole sentence needs to be recast.
Try “Now there was neither king nor queen”. That way there is no dispute over singular versus plural.
Actually if I had to write it, I’d go for: “Now there was no more king, no more queen and no more reconciliation.”
An improvement on my submission
This. But I’d rewrite the whole sentence.
Yeah, my first reaction was “Rewrite!”
There was no more king or queen to reconcile with each other.
There were no more king and queen to reconcile with each other.
But yeah, rewrite.
King and queen is plural, and would use “were”.
King or queen is singular, and uses “was”.
As it were.
Regards,
Shodan
I think I agree; a re-write is probably best.
Thank you all for the suggestions; I’ll pass 'em along.
Shodan: thank you specifically for the clarification on singular vs. plural. I somehow never got that lesson in any of my old English classes. “King or queen” is singular. Now I know!
(My “ear” was right!)
It’s was.