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One of the things that makes him great is he brings it every night.

I'm pretty sure it should be that make him in the plural, because one of the things is referring to a lot of things and a lot of things should take a plural verb. But I always hear native speakers in America say it in the singular, so with an s.

Another example:

This is one of the responsibilities that comes with greatness and he understands that.

Native speakers always use the verb in the singular (here, comes) even though [I believe] it is grammatically incorrect to use the singular form of the verb there.

herisson
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Steve
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    A decent usage dictionary, such as Merriam-Webster's Dictionary of English Usage, will usually discuss this exact topic. In my copy of MWCDEU, there is the section "one of those who", where that topic is discussed. – F.E. Mar 07 '15 at 07:07
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    You may want to have a look at a couple of the answers to this question here. The top answer and F.E.'s answer which contains some info from The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language are both helpful. (Btw, if lot's of people do it, it's not ungrammatical!) :-) – Araucaria - Him Mar 09 '15 at 11:42
  • Probable duplicate of one or more of the following related questions: http://english.stackexchange.com/q/184634 http://english.stackexchange.com/q/185714 http://english.stackexchange.com/q/200208 http://english.stackexchange.com/q/130633 http://english.stackexchange.com/q/37299 http://english.stackexchange.com/q/177097 http://english.stackexchange.com/q/12628 – tchrist Mar 09 '15 at 23:24
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    @tchrist There's possibly one possible duplicate there, (it has bad answers). Three of the others are linked to closed posts, two of which were deemed off topic. Two of the others are about co-ordinated subjects. – Araucaria - Him Mar 10 '15 at 01:17
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    @F.E. I think you should cut and paste your answer from the linked to question on ELL in my comment above as an answer here ... – Araucaria - Him Mar 10 '15 at 01:19
  • @Araucaria You so funny! :D – F.E. Mar 10 '15 at 05:12
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    @Araucaria Community wiki is vastly misused, imo. You could always borrow whatever info you wanted when you do your answer. – F.E. Mar 10 '15 at 18:47

4 Answers4

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Some of the style guides that I have are categorical in claiming that the plural verb is correct in such constructions as:

One of the things that makes/make him great is he brings it every night.

Follet in Modern American Usage (p298) states:

These words (one of the [plural noun] who .. ) introduce the most widespread of all defiances of rudimentary grammar: the coupling of a plural subject with a singular verb.

Partridge in Usage and Abusage (p214) states:

The rule is that the formula, one of + plural noun, requires the ensuing verb to be plural.

The Right Word at the Right Time (p405) states:

The construction one of those who or one of the Xs that often presents the writer or speaker with a problem: does the verb that follows go into the singular or the plural? ... The answer is the plural: who or that refers not to one but to those or the Xs. (* See below)

Garner in Modern American Usage (p590) writes:

This construction requires a plural verb in the relative clause, not a singular one.

Other style guides offer a more nuanced approach. For example, the conclusion after a lengthy discussion of the construction in Merriam Webster's Dictionary of English Usage (p690) is:

So the choice of a singular or plural verb ... is a matter of notional agreement: is one or those (Xs) to be the master? .... There is abundant evidence that one has controlled number in modern English sentences from Shakespeare to James Kilpatrick, and there is likewise abundant evidence that those has controlled number in other sentences. Addison was not troubled by using both constructions. You need not be more diffident than Addison.

Peters in The Cambridge Guide to English Usage (p394) states:

For most writers the choice depends on whether you're thinking of a single case or a general principle. Usage commentators in the UK and the US have been inclined to say it should be the plural; and the Harper-Heritage usage panel voted heavily in its favor (78%). Yet Webster's English Usage (1989) found ample American evidence for the singular construction, and it's just as common as the plural in British data from the BNC. Writers using the singular take their cue from one, whereas plural users are responding to those [people] or the [things].

Finally, Steven Pinker, in his recent The Sense of Style (p250) writes:

For more than a thousand years the siren song of the singular one has overridden the syntactic demand of the plural those, and writer after writer has gone with the singular.

...

Usage guides today suggest that either the singular or plural is acceptable in this construction, depending on whether one or those looms larger in the writer's mind.

It is interesting that one of the sentences that The Right Word at the Right Time lists as ungrammatical is the following:

If you are one of those listeners who is alternately worried and puzzled by the state of modern English ... .

This sentence was written by pre-eminent British linguist Professor David Crystal.

Shoe
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    +1. The 2002 reference grammar by Huddleston and Pullum et al., CGEL, also has a bit on this topic too. :) – F.E. Mar 07 '15 at 09:56
  • But doesn't English follow Dutch grammar? – F.E. Mar 07 '15 at 09:59
  • @F.E. Thanks for pointing this out. As well as the extracts from the prescriptive guides I cite above, it's good to include what the CGEL, a descriptive grammar, says on the topic, with the example sentence He's one of those people who always wants/want the last word: "... the expectation would be that the number of the verb would be determined by the antecedent, giving a plural verb ... . In practice, however, singular verbs are often found as alternants of plurals ... ." (Was the question about Dutch for me?) – Shoe Mar 07 '15 at 10:28
  • (Er, the Dutch question wasn't actually really for you. Though, perhaps someone ought to mention that English grammar is not Dutch grammar.) -- CGEL on page 506 gives examples that use singular and plural verbs (Type I and Type II). Many of those style manuals are rather faulty when it comes to grammar evaluations. – F.E. Mar 07 '15 at 10:40
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    Thank you (+1) Shoe & @F.E. - you have provided great referential support for my original assertion which Cerberus assured me was incorrect. I could understand Cerberus' reasoning but was unable to backup my position. –  Mar 07 '15 at 13:08
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    One of the things that annoy me is finding only 57 instances of that in Google Books, whereas one of the things that annoys* me* is finding an estimated 499 instances of the singular verb form. – FumbleFingers Mar 14 '15 at 02:41
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    @LittleEva I've done an answer below that has additional info from the CaGEL. – Araucaria - Him Mar 15 '15 at 02:03
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  1. One of the things that makes him great is he brings it every night.
  2. One of the things that make him great is he brings it every night.

We might consider the case as being a difference between two types of meaning:

  1. There are several things. One which makes him great, is that he brings pizza every night.

  2. There are several things that make him great. One of these is that he brings pizza every night.

In this case it would be natural to expect sentence (1) to be a representation of (3) and (2) to be a representation of (4). However, that is just not what actually happens in the language in real life.

The fact of the matter is - that contrary to what has been said in several of the comments here - one often attracts singular verb agreement even when the semantic subject of the verb is clearly plural. In other words one regularly overrides the normal subject verb agreement. So although the meaning of the example sentence is clearly something like (4), sentence (1) should be expected as a common and perfectly grammatical version of this. [What's that? No! You can't rewrite the grammar to try and make it logical any more than you can rewrite the rules of physics if you don't like those!]

Here is what a vetted grammar source, based on real data, the Cambridge Grammar of the English Language has to say about this:

. . . The relativized element in these examples is object. Where it is the subject that is relativized, the expectation would be that the number of the verb would be determined by the antecedent, giving a plural verb in Type I, and a singular in Type II. In practice, however, singular verbs are often found as alternants of plurals in Type I:

[22]

  • i. He's [one of those people who always want to have the last word]. -- (Type I )

  • ii. He's [one of those people who always wants to have the last word]. -- (Type I )

  • iii. He's [one of her colleagues who is always ready to criticize her]. -- (Type II )

Examples [i] and [iii] follow the ordinary rules, but [ii] involves a singular override. It can presumably be attributed to the salience within the whole structure of one and to the influence of the Type II structure (it is in effect a blend between Types I and II ). But it cannot be regarded as a semantically motivated override: semantically the relative clause modifies people. This singular override is most common when the relative clause follows those or those + noun.

Note Thanks to F.E. for help with this post.

Reference: The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language, Huddleston & Pullum [et al], 2002.

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Araucaria - Him
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One of the things that make him great is that he brings it every night.

You are absolutely right. The exact same issue exists in Dutch. The relative clause that make him great defines the things, which would otherwise make no sense. So that refers back to the things and thus takes a plural verb, make.

It is an extremely common mistake, caused by confusion between the head of the noun group (one) and the verb of the main clause (is) on the one hand, and the object of the preposition with its relative clause (the things that make...) on the other.

Cerberus - Reinstate Monica
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    @LittleEva: It cannot, because that make him great is a relative clause modifying things only, not one of the things as a whole. If it did, then of the things would be unspecified: what things, then? What are these things doing there? The things only make sense because the relative clause specifies what kind of things they are; otherwise they would be hanging in the air, so to speak. And the relative clause could not modify one alone syntactically, because there is an of in the way. – Cerberus - Reinstate Monica Mar 07 '15 at 06:32
  • Yes, OK, that's helpful. Thank you. It would seem that I've heard the ungrammatical version spoken in the vernacular so often that I've created my own system of rationalization for the pluralization of "make". –  Mar 07 '15 at 06:38
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    But usage does not agree with this unsupported answer. And David Crystal (see Shoe's answer) is an authority to respect. – Edwin Ashworth Mar 07 '15 at 11:43
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    @LittleEva If you've heard it a lot, that's solid proof that it isn't ungrammatical. "Grammatical" is a description of what people actually do, not what somebody or other thinks is right. This answer is completely wrong because it doesn't describe the real rules of the language. It's an attempt to rationalise the situation. Shoe's answer below will give you solid grammar info from some vetted sources. – Araucaria - Him Mar 07 '15 at 11:50
  • @Araucaria - the question I had asked (now deleted) was: in the OP's example (which was posted as a peeve before Cerberus corrected it) sentence, "One of the things that makes him great is ..." cannot the verb "makes" be said to refer back to "One" as opposed to "the things?" Now I ask again, can it or is that absolutely ungrammatical by prescriptivist standards? Or is my rationalization also sensical? –  Mar 07 '15 at 12:50
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    The last three grammar sources in Shoe's post are correct and based on observation of the common facts. So, in other words, yes, you were right the fist time ;-) – Araucaria - Him Mar 07 '15 at 13:25
  • @Araucaria: It's not about "grammatical". This question does not ask "what do people write?". On the contrary, it knows that people use the singular and even gives examples from real usage. The asker wants to know, is that proper style? And it is not. – Cerberus - Reinstate Monica Mar 07 '15 at 17:51
  • @EdwinAshworth: I don't see what usage has to do with style, at least not directly. Everybody knows some people use the singular, that is not disputed. The question does not ask "what do (some) people use?", but "what should I use?". – Cerberus - Reinstate Monica Mar 07 '15 at 17:55
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    Your 'It is an extremely common mistake' is not a quibble about style. And neither is OP's 'Is this correct?' ... 'They always use the word with s even though it's grammatically incorrect' requesting advice on style. And even your claim that this is the style OP should choose is rendered improper by the data from Pinker and CGEL and the example from Crystal. – Edwin Ashworth Mar 07 '15 at 21:09
  • @EdwinAshworth: You give no argument why this isn't about style. If he knows people use it differently, it is clearly not a question about "do people use this variant?". Instead, he asks about "correct", which is a prescriptive word. // I know some people do not want this website to be about style and prescription, but I don't see why. Half the site is already about it. // As to whether you agree with my stylistic advice, of course you are free to vote it down. // I don't consider CGEL or Crystal style guides; nor should they be. Science and style should be strictly separated, in my opinion. – Cerberus - Reinstate Monica Mar 07 '15 at 21:19
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    It is improper (and arrogant) to label a style as incorrect. – Edwin Ashworth Mar 07 '15 at 21:24
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    @EdwinAshworth: But that is what stylistic advice is all about... – Cerberus - Reinstate Monica Mar 07 '15 at 22:37
  • No. Correctness is black / white. When you say that usages at least tolerated by CGEL, considered acceptable by the style guides Pinker mentions, and actually used by Crystal are incorrect you're arrogating. – Edwin Ashworth Mar 08 '15 at 00:30
  • @EdwinAshworth: Then you must feel that all style guides that base themselves on a certain philosophy and disagree with some other style guides are arrogating. That may be so, but I don't see the problem. Style is not about consensus. – Cerberus - Reinstate Monica Mar 08 '15 at 01:29
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    Style guides do not call alternative suggestions in rival publications 'an extremely common mistake'. As is said in LitReactor 'Style guides, as the name implies, are subjective'. Guides, not arbiters of what is correct and incorrect. When you say that usages at least tolerated by CGEL, considered acceptable by the style guides Pinker mentions, and actually used by Crystal are incorrect you're being a dictator and judge, not a guide. – Edwin Ashworth Mar 08 '15 at 09:05
  • @EdwinAshworth: I disagree. I have read plenty of style guides that are as firm in their choices as the one I made. They are arbiters. It's part of their style, and I don't think it matters. – Cerberus - Reinstate Monica Mar 08 '15 at 19:01
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    Hugo has written about this sort of debate on Meta: 'We have lots of answers like "There's no single correct way, it's a matter of style. Here's what some style guides say." ' This is acceptable. Your choosing certain style guides and saying that others are wrong on ELU is not. It's a distortion of the truth. – Edwin Ashworth Mar 08 '15 at 22:27
  • @EdwinAshworth: I consider that a category mistake: style is not about truth. It is not about "wrong" as in "untrue". It should be strictly separated from science. Stylistic advice is about elegance and such, and about taking positions (or not). That's why style guides tell you "don't write x" (or not). A mere listing of options is possible, but it's often not what people are looking for. If you think my advice is bad and the singular is not ugly, then that's what other answers are for, you can vote for them. – Cerberus - Reinstate Monica Mar 08 '15 at 23:06
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    'They always use the word with s even though it's grammatically incorrect.' [OP] // 'You are absolutely right.' // 'As to whether you agree with my stylistic advice, of course you are free to vote it down.' Don't you know the difference? – Edwin Ashworth Mar 09 '15 at 10:47
  • @EdwinAshworth: Ah, that. You use grammatical in the scientific definition. That's not what the OP meant, obviously, since he observes that people actually write the singular. He uses grammatical in the way most people use it. Again, I think it is clear from my answer that I did not mean to say that the singular is not used by people. It's just inconsistent and therefore a bad choice. – Cerberus - Reinstate Monica Mar 09 '15 at 12:28
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    "It's one of the animals that likes to eat fish" and "It's one of the animals that like to eat fish" are both grammatical and have different meanings. Syntactically, both are acceptable. 'And the relative clause could not modify one alone syntactically, because there is an of in the way.' is, as F.E. says, nonsense. Of course, with specific examples (and OP's first clearly is one, as you point out), there may be semantic grounds for unacceptability. – Edwin Ashworth Mar 09 '15 at 14:42
  • I've learned to use 'grammatical' in the 'relating to syntax' rather than 'acceptable English' sense, as is usual on ELU, to avoid senseless confusion. Meta-language needs standardising or we might as well all pack up. – Edwin Ashworth Mar 09 '15 at 14:42
  • @EdwinAshworth: I agree, the reason is semantic. I mentioned that in my comment; perhaps it should be in the answer. But syntax is often partly determined by semantics, as in this case. // I have learned to avoid using the word grammatical, because linguists often assume other people use it the way they do, while in fact they often mean "something other people might disapprove of", as you say. I really think the OP meant the latter definition, because—isn't a construction that many people actually use by definition grammatical in the linguist's sense? – Cerberus - Reinstate Monica Mar 09 '15 at 22:07
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    He even says always: "They always use the word with s even though it's grammatically incorrect." A linguist using the linguist definition would probably not use always and grammatically incorrect in the same sentence. – Cerberus - Reinstate Monica Mar 09 '15 at 22:09
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    It's incumbent on people answering on a site for linguists to point out inadequacies in questions. – Edwin Ashworth Mar 09 '15 at 23:35
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    @Edwin: Hey, this isn't Linguistics...I don't think it's entirely fair to demand for society at large to use a common word in a way that was invented fairly recently by a comparatively small group— a group that apparently refused to take into account the resulting confusion, even though they be linguists of respectable profession. (I support the idea behind it, but I'm not sure that is the term I would have chosen myself to describe it.) – Cerberus - Reinstate Monica Mar 10 '15 at 00:12
  • At any rate, even if we were to agree that the OP used the word grammatical incorrectly (funny word, in this context), that doesn't change the fact that he seemed to be looking for a prescriptive answer, in my opinion, and not for a description of how certain people actually write (which is not disputed, neither by him nor by me). Perhaps we ought to have a Meta discussion about how we and askers use and should use the word grammatical, because I have seen it be the cause of confusion many times on this website. – Cerberus - Reinstate Monica Mar 10 '15 at 00:13
  • Believe me, I've tried to pin down basic terminology here. The trouble is that even top linguists insist on using even the very basic terms – word, lexeme, clause, complement, adverb etc – in different and incompatible ways. Here, @tchrist has wisely edited to get rid of the implication that OP considers himself a better linguist than David Crystal. – Edwin Ashworth Mar 10 '15 at 09:19
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There is no correct version here. It altogether boils down to what you want the sentence to mean.

One of the things that makes him great is he brings it every night.

This means that the "One" is what makes him great, not all the "things" in general. For example, "One of these cookies that tastes awful is the one with the pink frosting on it."

One of the things that make him great is he brings it every night.

This means that out of all the "things" that make him great, you're talking about only "One" of them. An example of this would be: "One of these cars that are at the dealership has a flat tire."

user3932000
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