Is vs. Are

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Ravish: Senior | Next Rank: 100 Posts; Posts: 65; Joined: Mon Apr 19, 2010 2:50 pmFollowed by: 2 members; Thanked: 6 times

by Ravish » Sat Jan 08, 2011 8:06 pm

While I have been fairly confident about my ability to differentiate between the two terms, recently I have been seeing a few native speakers using the term is in sentences where I would usually use are:

Case in point:

Jordan is a great player but so IS Bryant, James and Nash.

My concern was regarding the IS before Bryant, James and Nash. I would think that , since they are 3 different people, we would be using the word ARE. Is this correct? If so , is it because they are 3 like entities which is why the use of the word IS is correct just as we can say Research and Development IS currently underway, the word IS in this case being correct since R&D can be considered 1 entity. Wasn't sure if it applies to people as well.

Help would be much appreciated.

Source: Beat The GMAT — Sentence Correction | Sat Jan 08, 2011 8:06 pm

Jim@Grockit: GMAT Instructor; Posts: 641; Joined: Wed Jul 22, 2009 3:07 pmFollowed by: 45 members; Location: Madison, WI; Thanked: 162 times; GMAT Score:760

by Jim@Grockit » Sun Jan 09, 2011 8:41 pm

Ravish wrote:While I have been fairly confident about my ability to differentiate between the two terms, recently I have been seeing a few native speakers using the term is in sentences where I would usually use are:

Case in point:

Jordan is a great player but so IS Bryant, James and Nash.

My concern was regarding the IS before Bryant, James and Nash. I would think that , since they are 3 different people, we would be using the word ARE. Is this correct? If so , is it because they are 3 like entities which is why the use of the word IS is correct just as we can say Research and Development IS currently underway, the word IS in this case being correct since R&D can be considered 1 entity. Wasn't sure if it applies to people as well.

Help would be much appreciated.

I think this is one of those cases where the speaker changed the sentence partway through. This happens in all languages. I can't think of an acceptable case of multiple people in a list being considered a single entity.

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