Which Word Governs the Verb?

Here’s a sentence someone posted on a sports message board a while back. “I’m one of those proper-grammar assholes who uses ‘literally’ correctly.”

In classic Internet style, another poster followed up by saying that that this sentence itself is grammatically incorrect because the verb “uses” should be “use.”

The original poster fired back: “The verb ‘use’ is correct the way I used it, because the noun in that sentence is not ‘asshole,’ it is ‘one.’ The phrase ‘of those proper-grammar assholes’ is a prepositional phrase.”

To prove his point, he posted this from a grammar website: “The noun at the end of a prepositional phrase will never be the subject of a verb. For example: ‘A list of factors are at play.’ Here, the subject is not factors. It is list. Therefore, the verb should be singular in number.”

Sigh.

That’s wrong. But, perhaps more important, it’s moot: The real issue in that message board post has nothing to do with the prepositional phrase. It has to do with the word “who.”

But let’s start with the prepositional phrase business. When you have a singular noun like “flock” followed by the preposition “of,” followed by a plural noun like “birds,” a lot of people believe that the verb that follows should be singular because it’s governed by the first of those two nouns. According to this view, it’s correct to say “a flock of birds is overhead” but wrong to say “a flock of birds are overhead.”

That’s incorrect. Either noun can have a verb. Sometimes it makes more sense for the plural noun to be the subject of the verb -- even if it’s the object of a prepositional phrase -- as in “A flock of birds are fighting amongst themselves.” This plural verb is acceptable.

If that weren’t true -- if the website that the original poster cited had been correct --  you couldn’t say, “A bunch of teenagers are partying in the park.” You’d have to say, “A bunch of teenagers is partying in the park.”

But that has nothing to do with the original poster’s error. In his sentence, “I’m one of those proper-grammar assholes who uses ‘literally’ correctly,” the word governing the verb is neither “one” nor “assholes.” It’s “who.”

“Who” always agrees in number with its antecedent. Think about “the men who are coming tomorrow” with “the man who is coming tomorrow.” The subject of the verb in both cases is “who,” yet it changes depending on whether its antecedent is plural or singular.

If our original poster had written or “one of those assholes uses,” then we could talk about whether the verb must agree with “one” or “assholes.”

But instead he wrote “one of those assholes who uses.” That “who” changes everything because it’s the only possible subject of the verb. Again, “who” can be singular or plural, depending entirely on its antecedent. Our original sentence was about “assholes who use.” “Who” is plural because “assholes” is plural.

So the poster should have written “I’m one of those proper-grammar assholes who use ‘literally’ correctly,” not “uses.”

Tags: GRAMMAR

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