Agreement Quick Rules

Agreement is where careful writers still blink twice — bottom of a long email, last line of a report, a notice for the board. Here are the grab-and-go reminders for the usual trap spots. Each one points home to the article that actually teaches it; this page only finds.

• Collective nouns (team, committee, staff, family, government) — treat as singular when the group acts as one unit. → P5 · Agreement & Concord
• Indefinite pronouns (everyone, everybody, someone, each, either, neither, none) — take a singular verb. → P5 · Agreement & Concord
• Interrupting phrases (as well as, along with, including, of…) — the verb agrees with the true subject, not the nearer noun. → P5 · Agreement & Concord
• Either / neither — as subjects, they take a singular verb. → P5 · Agreement & Concord
• Compound subjects — joined by and, usually plural; joined by or / nor, the verb matches the nearer subject. → P5 · Agreement & Concord
• Singular they — they / them / their is standard for a singular antecedent whose gender is unknown or irrelevant. → P5 · Agreement & Concord · P2 · Pronouns

A small UK note on collective nouns

British writers often use a plural verb with a collective noun when the members are in mind — the team are arguing, the government are divided — where American usage keeps it singular. This is a TENDENCY, never a rule: both forms are correct, and the team is is perfectly at home in UK writing too.

→ Full teaching: P5 · Agreement & Concord · variety detail: Master UK/US Index

Links home

• P5 · Agreement & Concord — subject-verb and pronoun-antecedent agreement, including singular they
• P2 · Pronouns — pronoun forms and antecedents