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I just wrote the following sentence:

Saying "Walkers cheese and chive crisps" is up there with thinking mushy peas were guacamole.

I am wondering whether I should or could have written:

Saying "Walkers cheese and chive crisps" is up there with thinking mushy peas was guacamole.

I know sticklers say that the verb "to be" does not have a subject and object, but instead has two subjects, so they insist on "it is I", not "it's me". I think insisting on "it is I" is nonsense, but nevertheless a consequence of that is that the number of both subjects should be the same. Certainly, both these examples sound right to me, yet both sound wrong. Have I broken grammar?

Some cultural background for non-Brits: a Labour (left-wing) politician in the UK was mocked for mistaking mushy peas (a fairly working-class and northern food) for guacamole (a much more middle-class food). My sentence above was a below-the-line comment mocking a journalist who styles himself as populist, but is actually pretty middle-class himself. Walkers cheese and onion crisps are a popular favour of a popular brand of crisps (chips) in the UK. Cheese and chive would be a flavour of a more up-market brand that a more middle-class person (like the journalist) might choose.

Matthew Taylor
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    It was Peter Mandelson who mistook mushy peas for guacamole. He was a Labour MP and close confidant of Tony Blair, but never came close to being the party leader. – FumbleFingers Jul 23 '17 at 11:51
  • Oh: my mistake. I was thinking it was Ed Miliband. – Matthew Taylor Jul 23 '17 at 12:11
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    As a non-native speaker , from the second sentence I infer "mushy peas" refers to a "dish" not the "vegetable" – Mustafa Jul 23 '17 at 12:50
  • Google says No results found for mushy peas are* not guacamole.* There's only one hit for mushy peas is* not guacamole*, but note the "scare quotes" used in that instance. – FumbleFingers Jul 23 '17 at 13:26
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    I note that fish and chips are* expensive* gets a claimed 6720 hits, as opposed to just 10 for fish and chips is* expensive*. Which puts me well and truly in the minority, because I'd nearly always use the singular verb form there (as @Mustafa says, the contextual implication is "fish and chips" is *a* dish, not two separate parts of a "compound subject"). – FumbleFingers Jul 23 '17 at 13:34
  • (I don't see the relevance of *I/me* to the "verb plurality" issue raised by the examples.) – FumbleFingers Jul 23 '17 at 13:36
  • Very closely related: Agreement in “{Singular Noun} Is/Are {Plural Noun}”? It's not right to say that "be" takes two subjects, even for people who think of themselves as "sticklers". It takes one subject, like any other verb, and a predicative complement/subject complement. The complement does not have to "agree" in number with the subject, and the verb does not have to "agree" in number with the complement, because English only has a rule of subject-verb agreement, not subject-complement agreement or complement-verb agreement. – herisson Jul 23 '17 at 15:02
  • So, whether you use "mushy peas were guacamole" or "mushy peas was guacamole" should be based only on whether you would say "mushy peas were..." or "mushy peas was..." in general, not on whether you would say "...were guacamole" or "...was guacamole." – herisson Jul 23 '17 at 15:06
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    Just to be precise: no stickler who knows anything about language would claim that the two operands of the verb be (or any other copular verb) are both subjects. One is the subject; the other is a predicative complement to the subject. It is definitely not an object either, though. – Janus Bahs Jacquet Jul 23 '17 at 15:07
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    @sumelic Oops, didn't see your comment there before writing basically the same thing. Must have appeared while I was typing (in between ordering soup). What I meant to add is that some very old-fashioned traditionalists (a group which quite likely has a large overlap with the group of self-proclaimed sticklers) insist that predicative complements must agree on case (though not number) with their referents; hence “it is I”, etc. – Janus Bahs Jacquet Jul 23 '17 at 15:15

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An over specific side-note: the word is properly pease, or was for a long time in history.

The original singular was pease, and the plural was peasen. Over the centuries, pease became used as the plural, peasen was dropped, pea was created as a new singular, and finally pease was respelled peas.

While it was pease, it was considered an uncountable noun, like "wheat" or "corn", and your problem would have been solved. That doesn't help you now, of course.

All the cruft about "thinking" and "crisp" is irrelevant. Properly simplified, your question is, should you write "peas is guacamole" or "peas are guacamole"?

To my ear, the formal subject of "to be" dictates the grammatical number, and the "and" conjunction is always plural.

"Simon and Garfunkel were a musical group."

"Chris and Robin are a family."

Michael Lorton
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  • Thanks for your reply. Your examples are a little different to mine, though, because "family" and "group" can (except in the minds of sticklers) but both singular or plural. – Matthew Taylor Jul 23 '17 at 15:17