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From the film script of Gladiator (2000):

Your faults as a son, is my failure as a father

My question is: why? If anyone says “your faults is” this would normally be regarded as a grammatical mistake. So how can one explain that the English Caesar of Rome would use such an odd subject-verb agreement.

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    When there is a conflict in number between subject and complement, the subject dictates the form of the verb (He is all things to all men). Sometimes, though, a plural-form subject may be given a singular verb-form because the subject is being considered notionally as a single unit (bacon and eggs is my favourite breakfast). Here, though, the construction is grotesque and needs rephrasing.
    – Edwin Ashworth
    Commented Apr 7, 2016 at 7:19
  • @EdwinAshworth - 'When there is a conflict in number between subject and complement' -- isn't that a totally superfluous test?
    – AmI
    Commented Apr 7, 2016 at 18:57
  • Oops, pronouns 'who' and 'what' may be singular or plural...
    – AmI
    Commented Apr 7, 2016 at 19:15
  • @Ami '[When there is] a conflict in number between subject and complement' is describing a possible situation that can arise. Thus 'They are a fine example' (but never 'They is a fine example). What is the test you are talking about?
    – Edwin Ashworth
    Commented Apr 7, 2016 at 22:25
  • I retract my oops. There is never a conflict between subject and complement. The form of the verb (agreement) depends solely on the quantity of the subject intended by the speaker (and the tense which may override agreement). The test (when there is a conflict between subject and complement then ...) is superfluous because, when there is no conflict, the subject still dictates the form of the verb.
    – AmI
    Commented Apr 8, 2016 at 20:31

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Just a mistake.

Expecting that an actor in a film will never muff his lines (or that a script will never have typos) is unrealistic, even if it is produced in Britain.

Why didn’t they repeat the take? They may not have noticed it until the set had been taken down, or a host of other reasons.

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Interesting question. As a native English speaker I would agree with Barmar that there is some elision here. The phrase “your faults as [my] son” clearly means “that you have faults”.

Then we have:

That you have faults (as a son) is due to my failure (as a father).

However, on reflection I think the script writers were trying to be clever mimicking a Latin motto.

“Your failure as a son is my failure as a father” or “Your failure as a son is my fault as a father”.

If so, I agree with David that the actor may have muffed his lines.

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    Hello, Patrick. I'm not the only one to consider that 'Your faults as a son, is my failure as a father' sounds very off-kilter. And Orwell's Sixth Law (avoid anything sounding distinctly off) trumps the license to elide (here not the case, as words are also inserted) that English affords.
    – Edwin Ashworth
    Commented Sep 22, 2022 at 11:23
  • I agree that it’s “off” but not particularly noteworthy except that it’s spoken in a famous movie where you’d expect the dialogue to be pretty much perfect. Maybe the scriptwriters were trying to imitate Latin.
    – Patrick Corliss
    Commented Sep 22, 2022 at 13:33
  • There's a snowclone lurking, I feel. 'Your X will be // is/are my Y."
    – Edwin Ashworth
    Commented Sep 22, 2022 at 14:28
  • Never heard of “snowclone” before but, having looked it up, I’d agree - Your X is my X.
    – Patrick Corliss
    Commented Sep 22, 2022 at 20:49
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What I think he actually means is something like

The fact that you have faults as a son is due to my failure as a father.

The subject "fact" is elided, but its intent is there, and the verb agrees with that.

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    Elision is usually reserved for omitted sounds, but even if we extend it to words, this wouldn't be an example. You've changed the sentence and along with it, its syntax. In the sentence She's the one I Iove you can say that the relative pronoun that has been omitted because the syntax of the sentence is identical to She's the one that I love. EA's comment gives the syntactical reason for the singular verb, notional singular number.
    – deadrat
    Commented Apr 7, 2016 at 7:30
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    @deadrat Elided is actually the right word for ellipsis (what's being discussed here) as well as elision, for some reason. You're correct that this isn't ellipsis though, because rather than leaving out words it's rewriting the sentence entirely.
    – John Clifford
    Commented Apr 7, 2016 at 7:40

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