Question

What change, if any, should the author make to sentence 8 to correct the problem of subject-verb agreement? A. NO CHANGE B. "Neither my friends nor my family were caring about me," said Finlay. C. "Neither my friends nor my family are caring about me," said Finlay. D. "Neither my friends nor my family cares about me," said Finlay.

Answer 1

D. "Neither my friends nor my family cares about me," said Finlay.

In this sentence there are two subjects, "friends" and "family". Since the conjunction "neither...nor" is used, the subject-verb agreement gets a little tricky. If both subjects were singular, as in he or she, the verb must agree with a singular subject. This is because it is either one or the other not both. In this sentence, one subject is plural, friends, and one subject is singular, family. Family is considered a collective noun, so even though there are many people in the family, there is only one family. Since family is closest to the verb and it is singular, "to care" must be in the singular form. Option B and C are wrong because the verbs "were" and "are" are plural verbs.