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"Above maturity, is intelligence and self respect.

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"Above maturity, are intelligence and self respect.

Askeladd
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    Would you say 'Above the lake is the mountains'? There is the practice of using singular agreement with notionally unary compound subjects (bacon and eggs is my favourite meal; health and safety is our prime concern) (notional/logical agreement or synesis), but that doesn't seem appropriate here. – Edwin Ashworth Jun 30 '20 at 13:39
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    Neither one is English because of the comma. – RegDwigнt Jun 30 '20 at 18:42

2 Answers2

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It should be are because you go on to provide more than one character trait ('intelligence, high self-esteem, dominance and quality of life').

I do agree with you, however, in that the revised sentence sounds rather stilted. To rectify this, perhaps you could rephrase the sentence to:

'Intelligence, self-esteemed, dominance and a quality of life are more important than being nice and mature.'

Publius
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    Switching the order of a sentence around can be a very iffy thing to do, because it changes what the sentence emphasizes. – Peter Shor Jun 30 '20 at 13:24
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When you put a verb before a list in English, there are two possible rules you can follow: you can either make it plural or you can make it agree with the first element of the list. So both is and are are correct here. In formal English, you should use the first rule, and it should be plural. However, you're probably used to the second rule, which makes are sound stilted and overly formal here. Use the first rule in scientific papers and other formal writing. But if you're used to the second rule, feel free to use it outside of very formal writing.

See this question.

Peter Shor
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