There’s a dispute in my office over which one of the following constructions is correct:
Smith or Jones need to sign the contract.
vs.
Smith or Jones needs to sign the contract.
Which one is correct? I think it’s the first one, but I’m in a three-to-two minority here. Can anyone settle this? With a link, preferably? Save my reputation as a grammar maven! Or expose me to embarrassment! Please help!
In that case, I have some bad news…
Smith or Jones needs to sign the contract.
The subject 1s singular - either Smith or Jones, not both.
Rewite it in the same sense:
Smith needs to sign the contract (because Jones is on the road). and the subject is still singular.
Smith and Jones need to sign the contract. Now you have a compund subject so you use the plural form of the verb.
You have a compound singular subject. Thus, you need a verb that agrees with a singular noun in the subject.
Smith needs to sign the contract.
Jones needs to sign the contract.
Either Smith or Jones needs to sign the contract.
However, if you replace ‘or’ with ‘and,’ then the subject becomes plural.
Smith and Jones need to sign the contract.
Here is a cite as you requested.
Well, this has been neatly covered, so I guess I’m not needed here . . . Still, I’ll restate just so I don’t feel left out:
“Or” wil usually be singular–only one of them needs to do it; “and” denotes plural.
Ugh. Well, thanks, all. I appreciate it, even though I’m wrong. Now I needs to go eat crow, or something like that…
[pedant ON] you need to eat crow, actually [pedant OFF]
Wait! There’s still hope!
Look at the contract. Does the contract need to be signed by both people? Can it be signed by just one of them?
If the contract must be signed by both, then the problem isn’t need/needs, it’s or/and. Rewrite the sentence to read Smith and Jones need to sign the contract.
However, if only one of them must sign, enjoy your crow.
Actually, you need to have subject/subject/pronoun agreement, so what you mean to say is, “…Now I needs to go eat crows, or something like thats.”
The language is terribly complicated, and you have to follow all the rules.
What if the contract must be signed by two people, Riley must be one of the signatories, and either Smith or Jones may be the second signatory.
Then we get the following two sentences:
Riley and either Smith or Jones needs to sign the contract.
Riley and either Smith or Jones need to sign the contract.
By the logic of the rules being adduced on this thread, the second should be correct. But my ear says the first sounds better–though in fact neither really sounds good.
If my impressions are shared by many or most, then it just goes to show you logic and grammar are very different animals.
-FrL-
When the antecedents differ, then something called agreement by proximity can prevail. The verb agrees with the noun closest to it. This is most common when the nouns joined by “or” differ in number:
Either John or his brothers need to sign the contract.
Either John’s brothers or Sally needs to sign the contract.
I would say your sense that the second instance above sounds better is due to agreement by proximity of the pair of names joined by or.
See here for more on subject/verb agreement.
Yeah, that’s the phenomenon I was pointing out in my post. My point was that rules being adduced on this thread so far seem to rely on a certain way of transforming logical rules* into grammatical rules. My point was that this isn’t quite right. It turns out word proximity has an effect independent of the logical considerations people have been talking about.
-FrL-
*Specifically, theories regarding the meanings of logical connectors and how these meanings contribute to the grammatical number of a noun phrase
Yeah, that’s the phenomenon I was pointing out in my post. Rules being adduced on this thread so far seem to rely on a certain way of transforming logical rules* into grammatical rules. My point was that this isn’t quite right. It turns out word proximity has an effect independent of the logical considerations people have been talking about.
-FrL-
*Specifically, theories regarding the meanings of logical connectors and how these meanings contribute to the grammatical number of a noun phrase
Just another instance of proof that the taxpayers money is wasted on HS education.
Eh? And what the hell is that supposed to mean?
I see what you’re saying about the last one, where you’ve got a plural subject followed by a singular subject, but I don’t like it. That’s why I think it makes logical sense to treat the conjunctive subject as a plural rather than a singular. The oppositive conjunction or implies that there’s only one option that the case will ultimately apply to, so why not treat them as one? Your example of “John’s brother’s” and “Sally” supports my point, since the oppositive conjunction can link both plural and singular subjects. Resorting to the plural instead of the singular solves this issue.
Here’s another example:
Either John or I are going first.
vs.
Either John or I am going first.
See, I think the first one sounds better to my ear, since the verb agrees with “John or I” as a compound subject. I know I’d say “John or I are,” since it’s the more inclusive rather than the one that happens to agree with the second part of the plural subject. Further, if you take one of the options out of the sentence, you’ll need to reconjugate the verb; you can’t say “I are going first” or “John are going first.”
I also have to disagree with Frylock about word proximities being relevant to the conjugation of verbs regardless of what’s logical. I realize that that’s increasingly common in modern usage, but I take issue with it. Verbs are supposed to agree with their subjects; it works better that way. That said, is “The majority is…” correct, or is “The majority are…” correct? A majority is, by definition, more than one part, but we consider it as a whole, so I’d conjugate it in the singular.
The British seem to treat such subjects as plural, saying things like “Deep Purple are on tour,” where the tendency in America is to say “Deep Purple is on tour.” However, we Americans tend to treat this rule less logically than the British, because we tend to conjugate in the plural according to plural-sounding band names, i.e. “The Beatles are on tour.” We’d never say “The Beatles is on tour” even though “The Beatles” represents a single group; this is because, to the American ear, “The Beatles” sounds plural (and besides, half of them are dead.)
I think that the idea of letting the ear be the guide is often the best route, as Colibri has suggested, and the examples are good ones, but it has dangerous implications. For instance, it appear that to many ears, “Thank you for the gift you’ve given to Beth and I,” is perfectly acceptable. For many of us, of course, it sounds like the proverbial nails on blackboards, but to an increasing number of folks, it seems to sound perfectly fine. In fact, as we’ve discussed here, it seems to derive from a misguided attempt to sound correct - an overcorrection. These types of errors (I’ll call them so), are to my ear egregious. But if left to the public “ear” it seems that it’s going to become more and more common. Language changes. I’m holding out against that one, but if the ear is to be a guide, a lot of people have tin ears. Still, as we know, grammar rules are descriptive, not prescriptive. (Hey, write that down. It could be important.) xo, C.
The problem is, of course, that grammar is not always logical, (And the “logical” rules differ between languages. For example, double negatives are perftectly acceptable in Spanish, although officially frowned on in English, no matter that they are accepted colloquially.)
One could certain propose a grammatical rule by which, if there are plural and singular subjects linked by or, the verb is plural. But proposing grammatical rules and getting people to accept them are two different things.
Now I’m confused by your position. In the first instance above, you argued that logic (inclusive subject) rather than sound should be preferred. Your third sentence here, however, to my mind argues against your position, and illustrates why it is generally not accepted. (However, I would point out that the second example also also requires reconjugation in part, since if you drop “I” you need to say “'John is”.)
See the article I linked to, which discusses grammatical vs. notional agreement.
On some such issues, there is no agreement, and you are free to use whatever formation you please, as long as you are consistent. Stylebooks (e.g. University of Chicago or AP) will give sets of rules on how such things are handled in that style. On others, there is a general consensus, and you will look ignorant if you insist on following your own rules. (Or worse, people will think you are British. 
It is NEVER correct to say “John or I are …” The simple way to parse it is to think of it as “John is … or I am …” It only sounds better if you are either ignorant of the rule, or simply prefer to think of multiple nouns as plural, regardless of construction.
In situations where the subject is complex, like the example offered up by Colibri (“Either John’s brothers or Sally needs to sign the contract.”), most style manuals and English teachers would simply advise that you rework the sentence to avoid the conflict. Thus, you could rephrase it as, “Either John’s brothers need to sign the contract, or Sally needs to.” You might try replacing “needs to” with “does.” This avoids the ugly sounding result of needs paired with brothers.
As for the issue of collective nouns referring to a group of people, such as a sports team or a band, the British treat them as a multiple people, even when the noun is singular. Thus, “Chelsea are running away with the title” would be said. In America, we prefer to use a singular noun name in a singular way, so that I would say that, “The Cubs are a disaster,” but I would say, “Chicago is playing poorly.”
Now, you can disagree with the “rules” if you like; be my guest. But talking in an unruly way will make you sound dumb or uneducated, at best. Of course, in a country that increasingly says things like, “Floor needs mopped,” and “Ten items or less,” or “I spread the butter thin,” I suppose it won’t matter what you sound like soon. :smack: