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Which one is the correct one?

I had no idea San Diego (and its surrounding areas) is that crowded.

or

I had no idea San Diego (and its surrounding areas) are that crowded.

And would the answer be different if I used commas instead of the two parentheses?

herisson
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Roronoa Zoro
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    This question is very similar to Changing plurality in parentheses -- does that question give any pointers? – Andrew Leach Feb 28 '13 at 08:21
  • I think it does. It seems that the first sentence is the correct one. I agree with the 'uncomfortable sound' though. The second sentence sounds much more comfortable, since the text in the parentheses will virtually always be read :). Maybe I need to rephrase. Would replacing the parentheses with commas make any difference? Thank you for the link. – Roronoa Zoro Feb 28 '13 at 08:31
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    No, because all the commas do is define a parenthetical phrase. That particular sentence doesn't really need brackets or commas: just run it all together [and use are]. – Andrew Leach Feb 28 '13 at 08:34
  • Thanks. My intention was to stress more on the actually city San Diego, rather than the city and its surrounding areas. But I will probably go with your suggestion. Thank you. – Roronoa Zoro Feb 28 '13 at 08:36
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    I think there are questions I've never seen addressed, here or hereabouts. The standard mantra is 'a parenthesis must be deletable with no resulting ungrammaticality' (though I've not come across whether this applies to comma-enclosed and dash-enclosed parentheses as well as to parenthesis-enclosed parentheses). However, what restrictions are there on the nature of the parenthesis? This can be wildly at odds with the matrix sentence { Bob (what muscles) floored Ted. Joe (no kidding) bottled it. Sam (!) ran off.} But San Diego (and its surrounding areas) is busy. does seem wrong. – Edwin Ashworth Feb 28 '13 at 23:50
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    Roronoa: this problem has been buzzing round my bonnet. (1) I agree that the use of brackets gives a different emphasis, and rewrites without them lose that. (2) Even though parentheses are supposed to be syntactically independent of the matrix sentence, I agree with you that I had no idea San Diego (and its surrounding areas) is that crowded. sounds 'off'. (3) A rewrite preserving the 'afterthought' nuance (assuming that is the purpose of the use of the parenthesis) is: I had no idea that San Diego was that crowded (as, apparently, are its surrounding areas). – Edwin Ashworth Mar 01 '13 at 09:22
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    @EdwinAshworth: Late response: you may find Byron's answer to https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/403708/singular-or-plural-verb-after-parenthetical-material-containing-a-conjunction interesting; he seems to have found sources that address this exact issue. – herisson Aug 01 '17 at 03:52
  • @sumelic Barrie's answer has it right. The text in the brackets is not actually parenthetical. The brackets create a wrong impression. – MetaEd Aug 08 '17 at 17:33
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    @MetaEd: Some people do actually use round brackets in circumstances like this; furthermore, it seems to be the case that some people use singular verb agreement in sentences where the "and..." part is enclosed in round brackets. Calling this usage "wrong" is an assertion that should be posted as an answer and backed up by some kind of argument. "It's not necessary" is in my view a poor argument for something being wrong: it's also not "necessary" to be able to use which in contexts like "a date which will live in infamy" (as it can be replaced with that). – herisson Aug 08 '17 at 18:00
  • @MetaEd: The word "parenthetical" has several definitions; some of them relate to round brackets and others don't. – herisson Aug 08 '17 at 18:03
  • @sumelic Barrie's answer comes close enough for me. I agree "parenthetical" has several definitions. In fact, I think I answered a question somewhere here about parentheticals and tried to articulate that. digs around ‘“A/An” preceding a parenthetical statement’ – MetaEd Aug 08 '17 at 18:04
  • @MetaEd: I don't particularly object to Barrie's answer here, but I don't think it completely addresses all aspects of the question. I don't like that this question is closed and marked as a "duplicate" of a very inexact match. I would like either for it to be edited to add a pointer to the question I posted a link to (which I think is clearly more similar than the supposed "duplicate"), or for it to be reopened so that alternative answers can be posted. – herisson Aug 08 '17 at 18:05

1 Answers1

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As Andrew has said in his comment, you don’t need brackets here. By using them you create an unnecessary difficulty, and you don’t really need to replace them with commas. San Diego and its surrounding areas is a plural subject, so it needs a plural verb.

What you also need is the verb in a different tense. The second clause in the sentence is, in functional grammar terms, a projected clause. That is, it is similar to indirect speech, in which present tenses normally become past tenses. All these considerations point to writing the sentence as:

I had no idea San Diego and its surrounding areas were that crowded.

Barrie England
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