A Flock of Birds Flies or a Flock of Birds Fly?

Subject-verb agreement is usually pretty easy. But even the most grammar-savvy people can get confounded by sentences like these:

A team of rivals was/were meeting the statehouse.

A bunch of whiners is/are affecting morale.

A flock of birds fly/flies by every day.

Everyone knows that a team was meeting but rivals were meeting. Everyone knows that a bunch is affecting but whiners are affecting. And everyone knows that a flock flies but birds fly.

But when noun phrase contains a singular noun and a plural noun, things can get pretty confusing. How do you know which noun should govern the verb?

Actually, the answer is easier than most would guess. You just take your pick. It’s up to you.

When your subject is a noun phrase with more than one noun, like “a team of rivals,” either one can "do" something. That is, either noun can get a verb. So choosing the verb depends only on which one of the nouns most seems to you like the one performing the action of the verb.

If you think the focus is more on the individual rivals than the whole team, you can write “A team of rivals were.” If you think it's more about the team, you can write “A  team of rivals was.”

There really is no right or wrong way. And your own ear is by far your best guide.

However, I have a way of looking at these structures that may help.

Every noun phrase -- a team of rivals, a bunch of whiners, a flock of birds -- has a head noun. Now, recall that a prepositional phrase is a preposition like “of” plus its object, which is always a noun or pronoun.  The "of rivals" and "of whiners" are prepositional phrases within the larger noun phrase.

The job of a prepositional phrases is to *modify.* They act sort of like adjectives or adverbs, depending on where they’re placed and what they point to. In a team of rivals, a bunch of whiners, and a flock of birds, the “of” phrases are all modifying nouns (team, bunch, and flock). So they’re really functioning like adjectives of those nouns. That’s how we know that team, bunch, and flock are the head nouns in their respective noun phrases.

Now, there’s no rule that says that the head noun gets the verb. There’s no reason nouns in the prepositional phrases can’t be doing some action. But I give head nouns a little more authority. As a default, I figure the head noun should get first stab at governing the verb. Only if it sounds funny do I make the verb agree with the object of the preposition.

So how would I write our three example sentences? Let’s see …

a team of rivals were (I feel that the rivals here are more important than the team.)

a bunch of whiners are (Ditto. Whiners seem to rule this noun phrase.)

a flock of birds flies (Here, I think the emphasis is on the whole flock.)

But if you disagree, your opinion is as valid as mine.

 

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