Today we use milk and cookies for Santa to figure out when compound subjects are singular or plural. We also invent a new language term: santaback. We hope you'll share your examples! | Subscribe to the newsletter for regular updates. |Watch my LinkedIn Learning writing course. |Peeve Wars card game. |Grammar Girl books. |HOST: Mignon Fogarty |VOICEMAIL: 833-214-GIRL (833-214-4475) |Grammar Girl is part of the Quick and Dirty Tips podcast network. |Theme music by Catherine Rannus at beautifulmusic.co.uk. |Links: https://www.quickanddirtytips.com/ https://www.quickanddirtytips.com/podcasts https://www.quickanddirtytips.com/subscribe https://www.tiktok.com/@therealgrammargirl http://twitter.com/grammargirl http://facebook.com/grammargirl http://pinterest.com/realgrammargirl http://instagram.com/thegrammargirl https://www.linkedin.com/company/grammar-girl
Today we use milk and cookies for Santa to figure out when compound subjects are singular or plural. We also invent a new language term: santaback. We hope you'll share your examples!
| Subscribe to the newsletter for regular updates.
|Watch my LinkedIn Learning writing course.
|HOST: Mignon Fogarty
|VOICEMAIL: 833-214-GIRL (833-214-4475)
|Grammar Girl is part of the Quick and Dirty Tips podcast network.
|Theme music by Catherine Rannus at beautifulmusic.co.uk.
|Links:
https://www.quickanddirtytips.com/
https://www.quickanddirtytips.com/podcasts
https://www.quickanddirtytips.com/subscribe
https://www.tiktok.com/@therealgrammargirl
http://twitter.com/grammargirl
http://facebook.com/grammargirl
http://pinterest.com/realgrammargirl
http://instagram.com/thegrammargirl
https://www.linkedin.com/company/grammar-girl
Grammar Girl here. I’m Mignon Fogarty, and you can think of me as your friendly guide to the English language. We talk about writing, history, rules, and cool stuff.
Today, we're going to talk about milk and cookies, Santa's back, and shoedabakers.
Compound Subjects
First, since some of you might be leaving out milk and cookies for Santa soon, I thought we could look at whether you'd say "milk and cookies are delicious" or "milk and cookies is delicious." In other words, we’re discussing subjects that contain the word “and.” You generally think “plural” if you see an “and,” but that’s not always the case.
Simple singular and plural subjects
Let’s start with some sentences that have definitely singular or definitely plural subjects. The subject in “The clown is juggling” is obviously singular; one clown is doing something. “Two clowns and the ringmaster are juggling” contains an “and,” and since three people are involved, that subject is plural.
Singular compound subjects with 'and'
Now for some subjects that contain an “and” but are singular. This might sound weird at first, but you probably say such sentences every day. Take these two singular sentences: “Peanut butter and jelly is available in the cafeteria,” and “Meat and potatoes was my grandfather’s favorite meal.” In these mouth-watering sentences, the two items combine to form a single unit—one dish—and this is the crux of the matter. As Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary of English Usage explains, “When the nouns form ‘a collective idea’ or ‘a oneness of idea,’ the singular verb is appropriate.” (1) Another example is “spaghetti and meatballs”: “Spaghetti and meatballs goes well with garlic bread.”
A compound subject that describes a single person
You might also find yourself referring to one person in two ways in a sentence, and if you do so, you will use a singular verb. Consider this example in which the writer is saying her husband is also her best friend: “My husband and best friend likes doing the dishes.” Although the subject “my husband and best friend” contains an “and,” the subject refers to one person. If you use a plural verb and say, “My husband and best friend like doing the dishes,” then two people are scrubbing. In this case, your husband is not your best friend. (Poor guy!)
Different and separable compound subjects
What if the ideas joined by “and” refer to more than one person or do not form one concept? Then, the sentence is plural. Noted grammarian Bryan Garner explains, “If two or more subjects joined by 'and' are different and separable, they take a plural verb.” (2) So If you say, “Peanut butter and potatoes are my favorite foods,” you are listing two separate items that you like. I’ve never heard of the combined dish “peanut butter and potatoes.” If it did exist, however, it would take a singular verb.
Singular or plural subject?
Now, let’s analyze some contentious sentences. The subjects in these may or may not be plural, depending upon your point of view. First up is this sentence with a singular verb: “His humility and his decency reflects the very best of the American spirit.” Or should it be “reflect,” a plural verb? We need to assess whether “his humility and his decency” are two variations on a theme and therefore one thing, or if these two personal qualities are “different and separable.” They seem like separate ideas to me. A person could be decent but not so humble. Others may disagree with this point of view. An anonymous commenter on the Sentence Sleuth blog, (3) where this sentence was criticized as Criminal Sentence 513, argued, “The author intends them to be considered as a unit, as a representation of a single quality, his ‘goodness.’ I think you can get away with either a singular or plural sense—it’s discretionary.”
There was even more discussion on the blog when it came to the following sentence (labeled Criminal Sentence 519): “Their capture and successful prosecution is what we want” (4). Some commenters argued that the police had one goal—to put the criminals behind bars—so capture and prosecution represented one idea. They therefore felt the verb should be singular. Others thought these two actions were distinct and the verb should be plural.
With sentences like these two, we may have to agree to disagree; you could make a coherent argument for either point of view. If you’d like to weigh in with your opinion, you can find both these criminal sentences at sentencesleuth.blogspot.com.
"Milk and cookies" feels like it could go either way too. Thought of as one offering, you could say, "Milk and cookies is Santa's favorite treat." Thought of as two separate items, you could say, "Milk and cookies are Santa's favorite treats." And note that the noun at the end matches too. "Treat" if you use the singular verb and "treats" if you use the plural.
Rewrite to Avoid Compound Subject Problems
If you come across a problem like this in your own writing, you’ll probably make someone unhappy no matter which kind of verb you choose. Your best chance for pleasing everyone is to recast the sentence so that you no longer have to wrestle with the idea of singular or plural. One way to rewrite the sentence about humility and decency is “He embodies the very best of the American spirit with his humility and his decency.” As for the second problematic sentence, you can very easily turn “Their capture and successful prosecution is what we want” into “We want to capture and successfully prosecute them.” It’s less wordy, too. As is "Santa loves milk and cookies."
Summary
Singular and plural is not as easy a concept as it might seem (notice how I said, “singular and plural is”; here, we’re combining the two to refer to one grammatical concept). When you’re deciding between singular and plural, think about whether the items joined with “and” constitute one concept. A Sentence Sleuth blog reader pointed out that “Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” (5) is a good example of a single idea that comes with an “and.” If you don’t know which verb to choose, just rewrite your sentence and avoid the problem.
That segment was written by Bonnie Mills, who's been a copy editor since 1996.
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The Santaback: An Ambiguous Figure of Speech
Next, I have an interesting question from Lynn.
"Hi, my name is Lynn, and I'm calling with a question about the use of an apostrophe. I'm wondering if there's a special term for the usage where an apostrophe can indicate either a contraction or a possessive form, and I have two examples of that from my own small town. A hardware store which is been there for over 50 years has a wooden sign that hangs on the front porch and that says "Today's special," and below that is another wooden sign that says "So is tomorrow." And the other example is a local house that has a Christmas decoration in the form of a wooden cut-out of Santa Claus seen from behind, and it just says "Santa's back," and so I'm just … I've always gotten a kick out of those usages because it always tricks you into thinking that it means either possessive or a contraction, but you can't really tell necessarily from the usage. Anyway, thanks. I enjoy reading your stuff and always look forward to it. Bye."
Thanks, Lynn! This was tougher to figure out than I expected it to be, and I turned to my language friends on Twitter for help because it turns out that there are a few different things your examples are almost like.
Garden-Path Sentences
The first one is what's called a garden-path sentence, so called because the sentence leads you down the garden path and then tricks you by ending up somewhere you didn't expect to be. It's a lot like a concept in comedy called the reverse.
A common example of a garden-path sentence is "The old man the boat." Because "old man" is a common phrase, you think the sentence is going to be about an old man, but it's actually using "man" as a verb meaning something like "to serve as the crew": The old serve as the crew on the boat. It led you down the old-man garden path, and then switcharoo—we're talking about something else!
Your examples could maybe fall into this category, but they don't fit quite exactly. In particular, a linguist named Alicia Stevers stressed that garden-path sentences have to be single sentences, and the "Today's special" signboard really feels like two sentences since the two parts are written on two different boards, and then only one interpretation of "Santa's back" is a sentence.
Crash Blossoms
A similar language trick or problem is called a crash blossom, which is a term that usually seems to be reserved for confusing headlines. The name comes from this confusing headline—"Violinist linked to JAL crash blossoms"—posted to a forum called Testy Copy Editors in August 2009 by a user named Bessie3.
Journalists were sharing these kinds of headlines before they got a name, such as "Squad Helps Dog Bite Victim," Nope, Squad Helps Dog Bite Victim and for a while, there was even a website devoted to compiling them, called crashblossoms.com, which has sadly gone dark. But you can still see old versions at the Internet Archive, which includes such real-life beauties as "Drunk Puppy Buying Banned by West Village Pet Stores." Nope, Drunk Puppy Buying Banned by West Village Pet Stores.
Crash blossoms are fun, but I don't think your examples qualify as these either.
Zeugma and Syllepsis
Next on the list of possibilities people suggested is zeugma and syllepsis, which as far as I can tell are two names for the same thing. These occur when you use a word with different meanings to create a playful sentence, such as this line from Alanis Morissette's song "Head Over Feet": "You held your breath and the door for me." Slightly different kinds of holding.
Wikipedia actually breaks down four different kinds of zeugma and syllepsis. That line from the song is what they call Type 2, "a single word is used with two other parts of a sentence but must be understood differently in relation to each." Other examples of that are "Miss Bolo [...] went straight home, in a flood of tears and a sedan-chair." from The Pickwick Papers by Charles Dickens.
Type 4 is interesting too. That's when "a word or phrase is used both in its figurative and literal sense at the same time," as in this example, also from Wikipedia: A transport company that advertises "We go a long way for you." They transport your good a long distance, but they also go out of their way with customer service.
These are fun, but they don't feel very close to your two examples with misleading apostrophes to me.
Paraprosdokian
The final category people suggested was paraprosdokian, a figure of speech that gets its name from Greek that means "beyond expectation" because, much like the other examples, it comes from having a surprise ending. But its definition is a little broader than that for a garden-path sentence because it can also include multiple sentences, although it doesn't have to.
For example, this line from Zsa Zsa Gabore usually seems to be written with a semicolon, but it could be two sentences: “He taught me housekeeping. When I divorce I keep the house.”
In particular, the definition from LiteraryDevices.net makes me think this is the best category for the restaurant sign "Today's special. So is tomorrow."
"It causes the readers to reinterpret or rethink the opening part of a phrase, sentence, stanza, or paragraph."
That's exactly what the sign does. So I'm calling that one a paraprosdokian!
The Santaback
But that still leaves us with the "Santa's back" double meaning, which to me, doesn't quite fit any of these categories.
So today, I propose a new name! There already seem to be a gazillion potentially overlapping categories for these figures of speech, so the world should accept one more. I'm calling it a "santaback": a double meaning based on multiple interpretations of an apostrophe.
So "Santa's back" would clearly be a santaback, and I'd say "Today's special. So is tomorrow," would be both a paraprosdokian and a santaback since it uses the misleading apostrophe. I hope people come up with more examples, and if you do, share them on social media.
Thanks for the question, Lynn.
Finally, I have a familect story and a question from Tom.
"Hi, Grammar Girl. It's Tom in Indianapolis. Hope all is well. Hey, I have two words today: one is the same and one is a weird word that I hear all the time. I'm not sure if it's even a word, but I heard it on the news before. So my familect is 'shoedabaker.' I say it to my sons all the time. When it's time to go, like and then 'Get your shoedabakers on.' I'm assuming it's combination of shoes and Studebaker. I don't know. I heard from an uncle years ago who used to say it to my cousins. So I say it to my little boys now, and side note: My youngest now when it's cold, started to say "Hey, get your bootabakers on." So anyway funny second one is a word that I just said I'm not sure if it's even a word but I've even heard on the news: 'a whole nother.' So this is a whole another story. I've heard people use 'whole nother' before set up heard on the news as well. I'm guessing it's supposed to be 'whole other' or 'another.' but I hear people say 'whole nother.' So hope all is well. Merry Christmas. Stay warm and safe. Bye."
Thanks, Tom. I love how your son has extended "shoedabaker" to cover boots with "bootabaker." That's very clever. And merry Christmas to you too.
As for "a whole other," It's definitely a thing. It's such a common pet peeve that it's actually a card in my Peeve Wars card game. The short answer is that people have taken the word "whole" and inserted it in the middle of the word "another." Some people might call this infixing (like a prefix goes a the beginning, and a suffix goes at the end, and an infix goes in the middle), but according to Syelle Graves, linguists instead tend to call "a whole nother" a form of rebracketing. It's like what kids do when you tell them to behave, and they interpret it as two words and reply, "I am being have." We actually did a whole episode about "a whole nother" back in June of 2014. So if you still have questions after this short answer, you can go back and listen to it. It's episode 421, and the whole explanation is actually really interesting.
If you want to call with the story of your familect, a word your family and only your family uses, you can leave a voicemail at 83-321-4-GIRL, and I might play it on the show. And if you have any holiday familect stories, now would be a good time to call with them.
I’m Mignon Fogarty, better known as Grammar Girl. You can find articles that go with each podcast segment at my website, QuickAndDirtyTips.com.
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