The Editor’s Manual
Free learning resource on English grammar, punctuation, usage, and style.
When the words in a compound subject are joined by “and,” it is plural. When they are joined by “or” or “nor,” the verb should agree with the part closest to it. When phrases like “as well as” are attached to a singular subject, it stays singular.
A compound subject is made up of two or more subjects that share the same predicate (“The dog and the cat sat on the rug”). Use pronouns and verbs correctly with compound subjects.
In a cleft sentence, a single thought is split into two parts to emphasize a specific element by moving it from its normal position into a position of focus (e.g., “It was in 2002 I graduated”).
Use there is or there’s when the noun that follows is singular (“There is a dog”) and there are when the noun is plural (“There are two dogs”). There’s is sometimes also used with a plural noun in speech and informal writing (“There’s a dog and a cat on the rug”).
“There” acts as a functional subject in a sentence to introduce a new topic, speak of quantity and number, or describe a situation (“There is an elephant in the garden”).
Anticipatory reference occurs when a pronoun appears before its antecedent, or the person or thing it refers to, in a sentence (“When she can, Rita runs marathons”).
Anticipatory “it” is used in the subject or object position to refer to the real subject or object, which appears later in the sentence (e.g., “It was nice to meet you”).
Use it as a dummy subject to speak about weather, time, and distance, and to introduce the existence of a situation (e.g., “It’s raining”).
The subject is implied in imperatives (“Please wait here”), certain elliptical constructions (“See you later”), and some nonfinite clauses (“Rita waited, holding her breath”).
The dummy subjects “it” and “there” introduce sentences referring to weather, time, dates, and situations in general. These pronouns fill the slot of subject in such sentences.