Welcome students, and other searchers! I am neither an English teacher nor a grammarian. "O'Hara's Recommendations" are my attempt to address the writing problems that, based on my reading of thousands of papers and tests, cause 95% of a student's writing difficulties. This page is about one of those problems-- subject/verb agreement—and a cure, The "S" Rule. Professor O'Hara

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Always remember the "s" rule. Many students, particularly those for whom English is a second language, have a problem with subject-verb agreement. Examples are:

Well, these are obviously wrong. The two examples below are not so obvious.

In both of these cases the subject of the sentence is separated from the verb by several other words, and the word that comes closest to the verb inclines the student to put in the wrong form of the verb. You can see what is wrong by getting out the words in the middle, as follows:

"The members . . . . continues" (What makes continues sound sort of right in the longer sentence is the word Assembly right before continues, but the subject of the sentence is members.)

"The Chief . . . . . listen" (What makes continues sound sort of right is the word forces right before listen, but the subject of the sentence is Chief.)

Anyway, here is the "S Rule" for subject-verb agreement in the present tense.

IF THE SUBJECT OF YOUR SENTENCE ENDS WITH AN "S" THE VERB ALMOST NEVER ENDS WITH AN "S"

IF THE SUBJECT OF YOUR SENTENCE DOES NOT END IN AN "S" THE VERB ALMOST ALWAYS ENDS WITH AN "S"

Another way of putting this is

IF YOUR SUBJECT AND VERB BOTH HAVE AN "S" AT THE END, OR IF NEITHER THE SUBJECT NOR THE VERB HAVE AN "S" AT THE END, WHAT YOU HAVE WRITTEN IS USUALLY WRONG. Many exceptions to the "S" rule exist, e.g., "The boss goes" or "We go" both of which are correct. You can eliminate most of these exceptions by thinking in terms of plural nouns--bosses, we, boys, girls--getting verbs without an "s" and singular nouns--boss, the class--getting verbs with an "S". Be sure to aggressively apply any cure you use for your subject-verb agreement blues. Little else in your writing makes you look as bad.

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©Professor Patrick O'Hara, MPA Program, John Jay College of Criminal Justice, City University of NY