What is grammatically incorrect with the sentence: "Moving to a new town and making new friends is hard for people of all ages."?
Is it the subject/verb agreement?
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Who told you this sentence was wrong?– DJClayworthCommented Apr 1, 2016 at 17:38
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2Someone is reading the subject as plural because it involves (1) moving and (2) making. But in speech it is very common to use a singular verb in this situation, especially when the speaker's intention is to indicate a single process or progression. In other words, the speaker may have in mind an implicit start of the sentence along the lines of "The process of..." yielding an idea like this: "[The process of] moving to a new town and making new friends is hard for people of all ages." No one would argue that "process" should draw a plural verb in this instance.– Sven YargsCommented Apr 1, 2016 at 17:39
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1It's not grammatically incorrect, but "people of any age" would be more idiomatic.– Hot LicksCommented Apr 1, 2016 at 17:42
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1 Answer
There is nothing necessarily wrong with this sentence.
However the grammatical version may not be what was intended by the speaker.
This sentence is grammatical if the phrase 'Moving to a new town and making new friends' is intended as a single action. In other words:
"[The action of both] moving to a new town and making new friends is hard for people of all ages.
Whoever told you this was wrong is probably thinking that "moving to a new town" and "making new friends" are intended as two separate actions, and both of them are hard. That's a valid thing to be saying, and if it was meant that way you should change "is" to "are" to indicate that there are two subjects.
Moving to a new town and making new friends are [both] hard for people of all ages.
These do not mean the same thing. First means doing both together is hard, and the second means both separately are hard.
answered Apr 1, 2016 at 17:46
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I agree that in English it is normal and common to use the singular verb form in this situation. I would like to point out that in French, I would without hesitation declare that the plural form should absolutely be used unless "the action of both" is made explicit -- and since "Nico" is a common French nickname for "Nicolas", maybe the person who told him the sentence was wrong was subtly influenced by the French default way of understanding the sentence?– Law29Commented Apr 1, 2016 at 18:32