Simple question:
My apples and orange are wrong
or
My apples and orange is wrong
I am not a native English speaker, and I am having some trouble choosing between plural are or singular is for that kind of example.
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3 Answers
It's hard to conceive of a situation in which apples and oranges could be wrong, but let's suppose there is.
Assuming you really mean apples (plural) and orange (singular), the first construction is correct.
My apples and orange are wrong.
You are speaking of multiple things, and even if both were singular
My apple and orange are wrong.
the copula (verb of being) would still be plural.
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Thank you, makes sense =D.... and sorry, apples and oranges are my favorite example objects :D– SaturnCommented Mar 10, 2011 at 4:03
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3@Omega: The phrase 'apples and oranges' is commonly used to describe differing objects. Because it is so common, it would not be incorrect the say "My 'apples and oranges' is wrong." In this case, the single quoted phrase is the subject and the verb 'to be' verb is used in its singular form. Commented Mar 11, 2011 at 0:04
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But if you had several cats and a dog, you could say that your cats and dog want to be fed, or that your cats and your dog are all waiting for you. I do not know why people think that a nearby word somehow warps the grammatical number of an entire sentence. It is like they are thinking the disjunctive case applies, like saying that my cats or my dog is likely to think this sounds funny despite its correctness.– tchrist ♦Commented Jan 21, 2013 at 9:27
In most cases this comparison is done in the plural on bother sides of the equation.
i.e.
Compare apples and oranges.
This comparison is generally understood to mean that the comparison is unfair, as the two objects being compared are not similar enough.
A nice variation on this theme, that I have heard being used to accentuate the fact that dissimilar objects are being compared is:
Your comparison is invalid, you might as well be comparing apples with pigs
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I coined "apples and elephants" for the same purpose as your "apples and pigs" and having been using it ever since. Commented Jan 25, 2013 at 23:11
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Why do you suppose this is an equation? It could be a pictorial representation of apples and an orange. Context is everything, Resistance is futile. [yes, Startrek]. :)– LambieCommented Dec 28, 2016 at 19:38
Conjunctions with conflicting case agreement are tricky, and relatively rare in written English. Johannssen (1998) in her book dedicated to this particular problem in English and Spanish gives a strong argument that when the conjuncts differ, the first (in Head-first languages) usually has agreement wit the rest of the sentence, while the others tend to some neutral or uninflected default for the language. Under her theory, which is the most comprehensive that I have found, because 'apples' is the first conjunct in your example sentence, you should use 'are', but if 'orange' is first, you should use 'is'. My personal preference would be to raise the conjunction to avoid this issue. For example:
My apples are wrong, and so is my orange.
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3No way. You're recommending "My orange and apples is wrong"? Even if both "conjuncts" are singular, you should use "are": "My apple and orange are wrong." Commented Feb 11, 2013 at 17:28
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1@Andrew, Spanish and English are completely different in this regard. I can see no case when you could have: My apples and orange (in a painting for examples) can be anything other than plural. That is: are wrong.– LambieCommented Dec 28, 2016 at 19:37
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@Kundor He may have just mistook the Spanish part of the book for the English but what this sounds like is a misunderstanding of the way English often treats the conjunction or: many teachers advise having the verb agree with the second of the two items.– llyCommented Jun 11, 2018 at 8:14