Who Are OR Who Is?

ESL people are sometimes at a loss about the correct SVA (Subject Verb Agreement) aspect of sentences with "who."

There are two angles to look at this question from.


1. Where only "Who IS" right!

Suppose you are walking into a room where a number of people are present. Would you use a singular verb or a plual verb in these sentences?

Who is/are interested in Football?

Who wants snacks?

Who is eating pizza tonight?

Even if you are asking this question to a group of people and sure that there will be more than one person as an answer, you are supposed to use A SINGULAR VERB. It is because we donot know the number of people beforehand.

2. Where only "Who ARE" right!

However, there are instances where you need to use a plural verb. It is when you know the number of people in advance. In fact, here, you are not trying to count the people, but rather you want to know the names or something of those persons.

Suppose you are going to a restaurant and see two people eating pizza. In this case, you will only ask this:

Who ARE eating pizza.

It is because here, you are trying to who those people are; you already know how many people you are going to talk about.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Learn cooking and kitchen vocabulary in English | Learn English in contexts

Image
cooking and kitchen vocabulary in English This American English lesson has incorporated both kitchen vocabulary and cooking vocabulary because while you prepare a meal both scenarios work out at the same time. In this spoken English lesson, you will learn 200 cooking-time dialogues, cooking instructions, cooking verbs, cooking vocabulary, kitchen vocabulary, and kitchen verbs. Although the lesson has plenty of content, the best part is that there are only so many verbs and phrases we say in English while we cook in the kitchen. Once you have mastered them, you are all set for talking about cooking in English. A trick to master cooking and kitchen verbs; the majority of them are in the form of phrasal verbs. If you have a knack for choosing the correct preposition with a verb, you can make many more commands with the same verbs with the same verb maneuvering them for separate contexts. For example, the verb "cut" can be used with prepositions like "off, out, in". For
Read more

How To Read Years in English?

Image
Unlike reading digits, reading years in English can be a bit tricky since the natural way of reading dates can vary from decades to decades and century to century. This blog will cover everything you need to know about telling years in English. Reading years in English 1. Years before 999 For years before 999, read them just like numbers. in 999 CE - in nine hundred and ninety-nine CE in 900 CE - in nine hundred CE in 801 CE - in eight hundred and one CE in 71 CE - in seventy-one CE 2. Years from 1000 to 1999 Reading dates from 1000 to 1999 is rather difficult since varied ways are there. We need to sub-categorize them further for convenience. 1. Years ending in 00 Read them as hundreds. in 1800 - in eighteen hundred in 1100 - in eleven hundred 2. Years ending in 01, 02, 03, 04, to 09 Read the first digits in tens, read the zero as "oh" and read the last digit in 1901 - in nineteen oh one in 1105 - in eleven oh five in 1509 - in fifteen oh nine 3. Years with first and third d
Read more