1

Which of the following sentences are grammatical?

Being egocentric and selfish are dangerous in a world where karma is always with you.

Being egocentric and selfish is dangerous in a world where karma is always with you.

According to the top answer on this thread:

I can use either: it depends on whether 'X and Y' are considered like a single thing or individually. However, one of the comments below says that for the other question this is true, but in this case I do NOT have a choice. The grammar here is different.

Community
  • 1
Shot
  • 33
  • It depends what you mean. If you mean it is dangerous to be both egocentric and selfish at the same time then the verb is is. If you mean that both egocentricity and selfishess are each dangerous then your verb is are. – WS2 Feb 01 '15 at 22:24
  • 6
    Beware! The answer to the linked-to question is correct for that question. But it is NOT correct here, the subject of this verb has a totally different structure!!!! It is a clause, not a co-ordination of noun phrases. – Araucaria - Him Feb 02 '15 at 10:22
  • In my understanding @Araucaria is right. The only subject of the given sentence is *being something. This something may be whatever you want it to be, nevertheless that doesn't change the grammatical countability of the subject. Even in the sentence "being you (pl.) is hard for us"* I would always use *is* instead of *are* – AverageGatsby Feb 02 '15 at 10:54
  • Also, note that you have two examples of the question in your question: "Which of the following sentences are grammatical" should read "Which of the following sentences is grammatical". – Ben Walker Feb 03 '15 at 16:08
  • Araucaria is right about the grammar (you would need 'being X and being Y are ...'), but I have a problem with the coordination 'being egocentric and selfish', which is tautologous. – Edwin Ashworth Feb 04 '15 at 23:51

2 Answers2

0

In the context of the sentence "egocentric" and "selfish" are descriptors describing the subject (a state of existence). In this sentence construction the subject is always singular (a plural subject makes no sense) so the second sentence is the correct one.

Jato Jejeniwa
  • 1
0

It's all about the subject. As pointed out by Ben Walker, you have actually given us two sentences with the same issue. What helps is to simplify the sentence to subject and verb, removing phrasing. "Which of the sentences is/are grammatically correct?" Which is the subject. A trick an English teacher taught me is to say "which [one]...?" This helps you see that your subject is singular and thus, you would use a singular verb (e.g., "is").

We use "one" because what you are choosing between are two singular items. If, however, you were choosing plural items, such as which M&M colors you wish to eat, your sentence structure would be plural. Using above trick, the question "Which M&M colors are you going to eat?" is "Which [ones] are you going to eat?"

Another little trick that can be helpful is to read the subject and verb aloud. "Which is...?" or "Which are...?" Stilll unsure, say outloud, "Which [one] is...?" or "Which [one] are...?" "One" is singular, so you use the singular verb "is". Or "Which [ones] is...?" or "Which [ones] are...?" "Ones" is plural, so you use the plural verb "are".

Same principle applies to the "Being egocentric and selfish..." sentences. Here, "egocentric" and "selfish" are each singular items combined together as a single unit (i.e., singular). So instead of reading it as "Being [blank and blank]", read it as "Being [blank]". Read aloud, "Being [blank] is dangerous...", "Being [blank] are dangerous..." The answer is "Being [blank] is dangerous." Singular subject uses a singular verb.

Whew, this is my first answer. Seeing the length of it, I do believe I need to work on how to clearly summarize a shorter answer! But I do hope something from the answer above may be of use to you.

kittynme73
  • 16