“He is one of the people who consistently supports our positions.” That’s how Jim Sedlak, director of public policy for the American Life League, described John Ashcroft, President-elect George W.

The couple is going to purchase the house? Or the couple are going to purchase the house? Even after all my years of editing, I can still get tripped up trying to make verbs agree with collective ...

I recently fielded questions about two subject-verb agreement errors that readers noticed in the media. One was heard on an NPR program. The other was committed by, um, a columnist who should have ...

What is happening to the English language? I learned the difference between singular and plural nouns while in elementary school. That was reinforced during middle school, high school and college. It ...

It’s spring cleaning time — an opportunity to sweep out dust bunnies lurking in recesses of recent reading. Let’s start with various forms of disagreement between singular and plural elements in a ...

Should you say a person’s whereabouts "is" unknown or "are" unknown? Dictionaries say "whereabouts" is one of those words that may be used with either a singular or a plural verb. One reference book ...

Why is Christian Science in our name? Our name is about honesty. The Monitor is owned by The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and we’ve always been transparent about that. The church publishes the ...

Written for THE NEW YORK TIMES SATUR- DAY REVIEW By the Hon. John W. Foster. Formerly Secretary of State, United States Minister To Russia, Spain, &C. TimesMachine is an exclusive benefit for home ...

Collective nouns can be taken as singular or plural, according to whether the word is seen as a unit or as individual items. For example: Thefamilyis proud ofitslineage. Family is seen as a whole unit ...

As terse as they normally are, newspaper headlines are designed to get your attention by, as much as possible, summarizing the main body text. Two words in last week’s headline of this column; ...