"I touched their forehead[s] with my fingertip."  I'm not certaint whether or not forehead in this example should be singular or plural. There's a group of people, so obviously, multiple foreheads are being touched. However each individual person only has one forehead.
18657
After the therapy, eight children (43%) became able to crawl/move on their back.   Or should I use "on their backs"?   Singular because each child only has one back, or plural because we're dealing with eight backs?
33877
I was solving some general questions about plural and singular. Then I came across a specific type of questions that have a hard time understanding.  Peter and Danny (is/are) going on a walk.  --> here we use 'are' because the subject of the sentence is "Peter AND Danny"  Peter, along with 100 other village people, walks.  --> here, we use "walk's'" because the subject of the sentence is Peter(singluar).  But the problem here is, why is the subject of the first sentence plural, while the subject of the second sentence is singular? Both of the sentences seem to talk about more than one person doing the action (walking), and yet, the subject of the first sentence is pleura, and the subject of the second sentence is singular...   Is it because of the difference between 'and' and 'along with'? If so, what happens if I use 'with', 'or', 'combined with', and so on? In what situation, does the thing become singular or plural?  I know that 'each, every, any, group of people' these types of words and phrases are singular. But if there are other nouns or phrases that I may be confused (like the one written above), it would be very nice if you could mention or talk about such additional things, as it would help me learn more about subject verb agreement. Thank you!
105595
I'm posting this question to settle a debate.  Is the sentence, "If there are three of an unparalleled thing, is any of them truly unparalleled?" correct? The sentence throws me off because the first clause has a plural subject, but the second clause has a singular subject. My personal preference would be to make the subjects in both clauses plural. I.e. "If there are three of an unparalleled thing, are any of them truly unparalleled?"  On the other hand, adding "one" sounds okay too. I.e. "If there are three of an unparalleled thing, is any one of them truly unparalleled?" The addition of "one" lessens the ambiguity over whether the subject is singular or not.
36471
Which of the following is correct?        Each person's car has four wheels.   Each persons' car has four wheels.
74575
Should I use singular or plural after one or more?  Example:      One or more [signal/signals]
75206
I took this photo by the lake last Saturday, Grandma. It looks lovely.   Do you know any of these people?      Yes, I do. The man who’s reading the newspaper is William.      He’s wearing a nice hat.      He is, isn’t he? Grandpa knows him, I think!   Why don't they say "he was wearing a nice hat" because that was happening in the past?  Can we use the present tense to describe people in a video?  For example, "Look at you in this video! You are smiling and swimming in a bathtub".
40348
This question is also open on EL&amp;U:   Considering the amount of controversy it aroused, I believe it's past "Learners'" level.    An edit was suggested to my sentence.     There was were an orange, some grapes, two apples and a small pile of cherries on the plate.   In my native language plurality of the verb always follows plurality of the first element on the list. There were an orange,... sounds awkward to me, no matter what follows up. My simple solution was reordering:     There were some grapes, an orange, two apples and a small pile of cherries on the plate.   But that's not the first time I faced this situation and I'd like to know what the rules of grammar say about that — was my editor overzealous or am I trying to copy rules of my language that don't apply in English?
2331
Is this comment that I made  grammatically correct?  In Latin, when a group of males and females is combined, the neutral plural form is not used, but rather the masculine is.
87854
I am a bit confused with this sentence.   The team was/were now in the field and about to take their/its place.  Since we are referring to taking positions on the field and as all the players take different positions, I thought we have to use the team as a plural here as the emphasis is on individual units. But my book says otherwise.  Is The team were now in the field and about to take their place, correct? Please clarify.
15618
Formally, is it correct to write:     A number of questions has been asked here.   or:     A number of questions have been asked here.   As a non-native speaker of English, I would prefer the former: the subject seems to be "number", therefore the verb ought to be singular, I'd say. However, the latter seems more common, and therefore I believe that my gut feeling is just plain wrong — but I would really like to have a definite answer.  Moreover, is it the same for "a myriad of", "a plethora of", and so on?
119391
In school we were taught that a subject in singular form required a corresponding verb, for example:     The multitude of insects is astonishing.   multitude is singular, therefore is must be used.  But now I have been told by an experienced (but not native) speaker that a subject with a plural meaning can be used with a verb "in plural form", for example:     The multitude of insects are astonishing.   multitude means plural, therefore are can be used.  Is this just an exception which is not taught to English language learners, or is it informal use, or is this wrong altogether?
20026
I wonder which of the two is correct:        I have a red and a blue car.   I have a red and a blue cars.      or        Everyone has a left and a right arms.   Everyone has a left and a right arm.      My (non-native) inclination would be for option 1, as it sounds better.  On the other hand, in the following examples, the plural sounds better to me.    Everyone has left and right arms. I have old and new cars. (when I only have only one old car and one new car) The left and the right arms are...   But are they correct?
11151
I'm thinking that the singular verbs "is" and "has" are correct below because we're referring to a singular lump of precipitation. Although the subject "inches" is plural, I think the singular verbs are correct below. We wouldn't say, "Fifty dollars are a lot of money." I think this is basically the same concept.  Good for the singular verbs below?  One to 3 inches of snow "is" expected. (Not: ... are expected.)  Ten inches of snow "has" fallen. (Not: ... have fallen.)
80449
How do you know when to use singular or plural nouns if they're used as adjectives?  i.e.     32-bit computer vs 32-bits computer?      teacher union vs teachers union?      wedding planner vs weddings planner?      sport medicine vs sports medicine?      student council vs students council?   Which one is correct?
60874
When should a noun that’s used at­tribu­tively to de­scribe an­other  noun be plu­ral, and when should it be sin­gu­lar?  And when should it be pos­ses­sive, like bak­er’s dozen and when should it be plu­ral pos­ses­sive, like farm­ers’ mar­ket?  In other words, why do we say teach­ers union rather than teacher  union?  And why do we say wed­ding plan­ner rather than wed­dings plan­ner?  Which of these vari­ants is or are cor­rect?        stu­dent union   stu­dents union   stu­den­t’s union   stu­dents’ union      What about com­mu­nity val­ues ver­sus com­mu­ni­ty’s val­ues?  Please note I am look­ing for a gen­eral rule or at least some tips.  These are only ex­am­ples.  Up­date: It seems even na­tive speak­ers fol­low their per­sonal  style to write such com­pound words. I won­der why in the IELTS lis­ten­ing sec­tion, the lan­guage learner has to write a spe­ci­fic form and there is no rule for this.
37862
According to this , if at least one of the nouns involved is plural then it should take the plural form of the verb. Otherwise, it should take the singular form of the verb. But in the last part it says not all grammars agree to those rules thus proximity rule applies. However, it doesn't explain when to apply the proximity rule and when not to use the former rules.
19879
The word dozen is a collective noun, i.e., singular when we think of them as groups and plural when we think of the individuals acting within the whole. So we might say:     Talking about eggs: "A dozen is probably not enough."   Talking about a party with friends: "A dozen are coming over this afternoon."   So, a dozen roses would likely be considered singular (like a bouquet). We might say, "A dozen roses costs ten rupees," as per subject-verb agreement.   1) However, since we have six dozen, does the modification of the noun by a number change the subject to plural, resulting in cost? Or is it all moot because of the plural roses?  In American English, collective nouns tend to be singular while in British English they may be both. That said, I've seen the suggestion that cost be used, which would be straightforward to me if dozens (plural) were used. From an American perspective, I feel the subject should remain singular when modified by a number: "Three dozen is enough to feed an army," or "Two dozen pizzas is/are too much" (the be verb is interchangeable in the 2nd example).  2) Is sticking with singular in the case above purely my American usage side showing, or is it a shared phenomenon?   states:     When modified by a number, the plural is not inflected, that is, has no -s added.   3) (Main Question) Does this have any bearing on whether the subject is treated as a plural? That is, since a plural is not inflected, could the subject remain singular, or is this irrelevant?  Note this is , since that question is vague and about to be closed and my suggested edit, which is the basis of this question, was rejected.