# Grammar Question - which sentence is correct, and why?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grammar-question-which-sentence-is-correct-and-why/630183
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [August 2, 2012, 3:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grammar-question-which-sentence-is-correct-and-why/630183 "2012-08-02T15:54:43Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 2
### Author:  [@Rhythmdvl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rhythmdvl)
#### Post date: [August 2, 2012, 5:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grammar-question-which-sentence-is-correct-and-why/630183/21 "2012-08-02T17:22:00Z")
Voltaire said it best:
With great power comes great responsibility.
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### Author:  [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)
#### Post date: [August 2, 2012, 5:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grammar-question-which-sentence-is-correct-and-why/630183/22 "2012-08-02T17:22:38Z")
> [@Svejk\_1](#):
>
> You clearly don’t. I do, though. All the stuff about ‘describing the relationship’ or whatever it is you’re saying - it’s completely irrelevant to the question. The terminology you want is ‘subject’, which is the part of the sentence that determines whether the declined verb should be singular or plural. This flower smells nice. These flowers smell nice. There’s no way that ‘with this promotion’, as a phrase, can ever be the subject of the sentence, and that it can control the verb - so it does not matter that promotion is singular. In this sentence, the phrase “new challenges and responsibilities” is the subject, and as it is plural, the verb needs to be plural as well. The resulting sentence may not be pretty, but there’s nothing ambiguous about it, and there’s no way in which using ‘comes’ is correct.
> [@pulykamell](#):
>
> There’s probably a better cite than this one out there, but look [here on inverted sentences and subject-verb agreement](http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-an-inverted-sentence.htm).
>
> Here’s an example sentence with a similar structure to the one in the OP:
All right, uncle. Rules is rules. I’m not going to follow them anyway, but the OP’s question is answered.
ETA: I gues the ‘with’ on the beginning screws it up. Would you consider “Your promotion comes with new challenges and responsibilities” to be correct?
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### Author:  [@Flyer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Flyer)
#### Post date: [August 2, 2012, 5:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grammar-question-which-sentence-is-correct-and-why/630183/23 "2012-08-02T17:24:47Z")
> [@needscoffee](#):
>
> You have to reorder the sentence to see it properly:
> New challenges and responsibilities come with your new promotion.
> [@Thin\_Ice](#):
>
> How about:
>
> Your new promotion comes with new challenges and responsibilities.
When I was in grade school, I had a book that starred a mythical creature called the “Churkendoose.”
([Amazon.com](http://www.amazon.com/The-Churkendoose-Chicken-Turkey-Goose/dp/B0007I746I))
The Churkendoose was fond of saying, “It all depends on how you look at it.” This OP is a perfect example of that. The sentence makes sense either way, and thus both possibilities are equally correct.
“It all depends on how you look at it.”
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### Author:  [@Inner\_Stickler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inner_Stickler)
#### Post date: [August 2, 2012, 5:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grammar-question-which-sentence-is-correct-and-why/630183/24 "2012-08-02T17:24:57Z")
Well, true rules of grammar are innate to the language but no native speaker, however much they text will violate those. Rules of usage are by convention, so, in that sense they’re meaningless, however continuity is important for universality and when people ask about the correct way to phrase something, generally, what they want is the historically appropriate method of phrasing it.
And I’m surprised and saddened at the number of people who have forgotten how to recognize an object of a preposition and how it should be treated when it comes to inflecting verbs. This is middle-school level stuff here, guys.
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### Author:  [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)
#### Post date: [August 2, 2012, 5:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grammar-question-which-sentence-is-correct-and-why/630183/25 "2012-08-02T17:26:40Z")
> [@s0meguy](#):
>
> They’re both correct. Technical grammatical rules made up by some group of people (probably old men, not that it matters at all) are totally meaningless, all that really matters in language is that you can understand the person thats trying to communicate something.
I agree with **Wheelz** ’s opinion of this, and would add that _how hard you have to work_ to understand the person that’s trying to communicate counts for something too.
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### Author:  [@Inner\_Stickler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inner_Stickler)
#### Post date: [August 2, 2012, 5:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grammar-question-which-sentence-is-correct-and-why/630183/26 "2012-08-02T17:28:31Z")
> [@TriPolar](#):
>
> Consider “Your promotion comes with new challenges and responsibilities” to be correct?
Yes, but the two sentences are saying different things. The meat of the idea of your sentence is “Your promotion comes.” while the meat of the OP’s sentence is “New challenges and responsibilities come.” In this instance the difference is slight but it is a shift in focus.
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### Author:  [@Svejk\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Svejk_1)
#### Post date: [August 2, 2012, 5:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grammar-question-which-sentence-is-correct-and-why/630183/27 "2012-08-02T17:28:39Z")
> [@TriPolar](#):
>
> All right, uncle. Rules is rules. I’m not going to follow them anyway, but the OP’s question is answered.
>
> ETA: I gues the ‘with’ on the beginning screws it up. Would you consider “Your promotion comes with new challenges and responsibilities” to be correct?
Of course it’s correct, it’s perfectly grammatical.
If you’re not going to follow grammatical rules and do not care about knowing them, why are you replying in a thread asking about grammatical correctness?
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### Author:  [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)
#### Post date: [August 2, 2012, 5:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grammar-question-which-sentence-is-correct-and-why/630183/28 "2012-08-02T17:29:33Z")
> [@Flyer](#):
>
> “It all depends on how you look at it.”
“The steak comes with a salad and baked potato.”
“A salad and baked potato come with the steak.”
It all depends on how you look at it.
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### Author:  [@Colophon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colophon)
#### Post date: [August 2, 2012, 5:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grammar-question-which-sentence-is-correct-and-why/630183/29 "2012-08-02T17:31:49Z")
> [@Inner\_Stickler](#):
>
> And I’m surprised and saddened at the number of people who have forgotten how to recognize an object of a preposition and how it should be treated when it comes to inflecting verbs. This is middle-school level stuff here, guys.
I must say I’m surprised that a native speaker of English would need to ask which is correct. Out of the two sentences in the OP, one immediately “feels” right and the other feels wrong, due to the obvious mismatch between subject and verb. And I was never taught prescriptive grammar rules.
I’m even more amazed that anyone would argue that “comes” is correct. Would they also say “Alice visit Bob and Carol”, because “Bob and Carol” are plural? 😕
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### Author:  [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)
#### Post date: [August 2, 2012, 5:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grammar-question-which-sentence-is-correct-and-why/630183/30 "2012-08-02T17:33:45Z")
> [@Svejk\_1](#):
>
> Of course it’s correct, it’s perfectly grammatical.
>
> If you’re not going to follow grammatical rules and do not care about knowing them, why are you replying in a thread asking about grammatical correctness?
Because if you build it…
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### Author:  [@Fake\_Tales\_of\_San\_Francisco](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fake_Tales_of_San_Francisco)
#### Post date: [August 2, 2012, 5:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grammar-question-which-sentence-is-correct-and-why/630183/31 "2012-08-02T17:34:10Z")
> [@Wheelz](#):
>
> With all due respect, bullshit.
>
> This argument is favored by people who use leetspeak, avoid proper punctuation at all costs, and don’t know the difference between _there_ and _their_. Arguing that anything goes as long as long as you make your point is intellectually lazy, IMO.
Actually this argument is favoured by many respected linguists. It’s the classic prescriptivist versus descriptivist debate. Language changes and evolves over time. I think you’ll find that ‘leetspeak’ is the exact opposite of what s0meguy said. The clue is in the term ‘elite’, meaning exclusive. It’s not _meant_ to be understood by all. Good grammar, punctuation etc assists in communicating clearly, but let’s not get bogged down in details.
Grammarians today do not set rules that people must abide by, they study how sentences are being constructed in a grammatical manner by the people using the language.
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### Author:  [@Colophon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colophon)
#### Post date: [August 2, 2012, 5:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grammar-question-which-sentence-is-correct-and-why/630183/32 "2012-08-02T17:37:46Z")
I think the lesson from this thread is, you either have an innate feel for language or you don’t. If you don’t, grammatical errors don’t leap out and annoy you, so you don’t care about them. 🙂
“With your new promotion comes new challenges and responsibilities” just sounds horrible and grating, as the “comes” clashes with the plural subject. It’s like hearing “I washes the dishes” or something.
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### Author:  [@Inner\_Stickler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inner_Stickler)
#### Post date: [August 2, 2012, 5:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grammar-question-which-sentence-is-correct-and-why/630183/33 "2012-08-02T17:40:50Z")
> [@Colophon](#):
>
> I must say I’m surprised that a native speaker of English would need to ask which is correct. Out of the two sentences in the OP, one immediately “feels” right and the other feels wrong, due to the obvious mismatch between subject and verb. And I was never taught prescriptive grammar rules.
Well, I just read a comment on the NPR website where someone explained to me that came and went are for people and come and gone are for things. So I have no idea what english teachers are doing anymore because they can’t even churn out traditional prescriptivists.
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### Author:  [@Jas09](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jas09)
#### Post date: [August 2, 2012, 5:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grammar-question-which-sentence-is-correct-and-why/630183/34 "2012-08-02T17:41:41Z")
> [@Colophon](#):
>
> I think the lesson from this thread is, you either have an innate feel for language or you don’t. If you don’t, grammatical errors don’t leap out and annoy you, so you don’t care about them. 🙂
Well, to be fair it does leap out - both sentences “feel” wrong. Which is why it should be re-written so you don’t have the proximate noun mismatching the plurality of the verb.
“New challenges and responsibilities come with your promotion” sounds better and has none of the ambiguity of the original. Or if you want to focus on the promotion: “Your promotion comes with new challenges and responsibilities”.
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### Author:  [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)
#### Post date: [August 2, 2012, 5:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grammar-question-which-sentence-is-correct-and-why/630183/35 "2012-08-02T17:43:15Z")
> [@Svejk\_1](#):
>
> Of course it’s correct, it’s perfectly grammatical.
>
> If you’re not going to follow grammatical rules and do not care about knowing them, why are you replying in a thread asking about grammatical correctness?
Where did I say I didn’t care about knowing them? It’s more difficult to break rules if you don’t know what they are, you can easily end up following them by accident. You should concentrate more on comprehension than syntax.
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### Author:  [@Inner\_Stickler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inner_Stickler)
#### Post date: [August 2, 2012, 5:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grammar-question-which-sentence-is-correct-and-why/630183/36 "2012-08-02T17:43:31Z")
> [@Colophon](#):
>
> I think the lesson from this thread is, you either have an innate feel for language or you don’t. If you don’t, grammatical errors don’t leap out and annoy you, so you don’t care about them. 🙂
Prose ear. If you read a lot of traditionally edited materials, you gain a feel for how traditionally edited or ‘correct’ english should sound without necessarily being able to explain why.
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### Author:  [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)
#### Post date: [August 2, 2012, 5:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grammar-question-which-sentence-is-correct-and-why/630183/37 "2012-08-02T17:46:16Z")
> [@Inner\_Stickler](#):
>
> Yes, but the two sentences are saying different things. The meat of the idea of your sentence is “Your promotion comes.” while the meat of the OP’s sentence is “New challenges and responsibilities come.” In this instance the difference is slight but it is a shift in focus.
The shift in focus may be something. But the relationship described is one to one. The literal meaning doesn’t change, and I don’t see an unambiguous shift in implication.
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### Author:  [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)
#### Post date: [August 2, 2012, 5:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grammar-question-which-sentence-is-correct-and-why/630183/38 "2012-08-02T17:48:46Z")
> [@Colophon](#):
>
> “With your new promotion comes new challenges and responsibilities” just sounds horrible and grating, as the “comes” clashes with the plural subject. It’s like hearing “I washes the dishes” or something.
They’re saying that the preposition is significant in the structure of that sentence, and they seem to be backing it up. It doesn’t sound natural to me, but the OP does appear to be asking about the grammatical rules, not what feels right.
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### Author:  [@s0meguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/s0meguy)
#### Post date: [August 2, 2012, 5:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grammar-question-which-sentence-is-correct-and-why/630183/39 "2012-08-02T17:51:01Z")
> [@Wheelz](#):
>
> With all due respect, bullshit.
>
> This argument is favored by people who use leetspeak, avoid proper punctuation at all costs, and don’t know the difference between _there_ and _their_. Arguing that anything goes as long as long as you make your point is intellectually lazy, IMO.
No, that’s bullshit. Did you see me do any of those things? A proponent of that argument?
In fact, I’d say that proponents of your argument are being intellectually lazy, for not thinking it through and instead going for what makes you feel superior.
Just because a word or grammatical rule isn’t officially recognized, does not mean it is wrong.
To illustrate my point, imagine this:
1. A person starts using “there” instead of “their”.
2. The group this person is in starts using “there” instead of “their”.
3. The group creates a dictionary in which they redefine “there” as having the same meaning as “their”.
4. The group creates a new country and creates a governmental institution that officially proclaims that “there” has the same meaning as “their” in that country.
Alternate story:
1. The use of those words in that way expands to an entire existing country. The dictionary is changed to reflect the new meaning of the words.
So, where along the line did it become correct?
If you’re going to say nowhere, then keep in mind that many words of all non-constructed languages were formed/mutated this way. Also, once upon a time, there was no official institution to declare what is the right thing to say and what isn’t. So, what defines which word is the right one in that case? Have all words been “wrong” once? (when they were first made up by someone).
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### Author:  [@Colophon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colophon)
#### Post date: [August 2, 2012, 5:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grammar-question-which-sentence-is-correct-and-why/630183/40 "2012-08-02T17:52:08Z")
> [@Inner\_Stickler](#):
>
> Prose ear. If you read a lot of traditionally edited materials, you gain a feel for how traditionally edited or ‘correct’ english should sound without necessarily being able to explain why.
I haven’t heard that expression before, but I agree. As I said above, my English education was far from prescriptive (English comprehensive school in the 1980s), but I read a lot, so misspellings and grammatical errors leap out at me. That’s just as well, considering I now work as an editor. 🙂
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