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Should I use make or makes in the following sentence?

David’s friendly demeanour, brilliant sense of humour and warmth, make you feel right at home.

I say make, but my friend says makes.

herisson
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Teiko
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1 Answers1

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"David’s friendly demeanour, brilliant sense of humour and warmth" is a compound subject. In this case, "and" is the co-ordinating conjunction. When a compound subject is joined by "and", you use the plural form of the verb, therefore make is correct.

However, if you had used "or" or "nor", then the verb matches the subject closest to it, which would be "warmth" (singular), and makes would be correct:

Neither David’s friendly demeanour, brilliant sense of humour nor warmth, makes you feel uncomfortable.

samgak
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  • Thank You! Tgis is what I tried to explain in a less technical or eloquent way! Much obliged – Teiko Aug 21 '18 at 23:52