The Editor’s Manual
Free learning resource on English grammar, punctuation, usage, and style.
How words and phrases are used: formal, acceptable, and incorrect usage.
“Neither,” which means “not either,” negates each of two possibilities individually. In formal writing, treat it as singular (“neither is”). In informal usage, it may take either a singular or a plural verb (“neither is/are”).
“None” may be either singular or plural, depending on whether you mean “not one” or “not any.” To refer to the individual members of a group, use a singular verb; for the entire group, use a plural verb.
Use “I” instead of “me” when it forms part of the subject (“You and I can work on this together”). When pronouns are joined using “or” or “nor” to form the subject, the verb should agree with the part closest to it (“Either you or I am right”).
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.
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”).
It’s grammatically fine to start a sentence with a conjunction like “and,” “but,” and “or.” Do this when you want to emphasize the connection between two sentences.
It is grammatically fine to use “because” at the start of a sentence. Just remember to write a complete sentence, and avoid using a pronoun before its noun.
Prepositions with overlapping meanings: In/into/inside/within, in/during, for/since, on/upon/onto, over/above, over/more than, under/less than, below/beneath/under/underneath, off/of, beside/besides, round/around, to/toward/towards.
It is perfectly acceptable and idiomatic to end a sentence with a preposition. Consider “What are you talking about?” and “This is what I was looking for.”
Collective nouns such as “team” are treated as singular in American but plural in British English. It also depends on whether you want to refer to the group as a whole or to the individual members of the group.