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A rule in my text book says

If the 2 subjects separated by 'and' refer to the same thing/person/suggest the same idea, they take a singular verb.

E.g. The Horse and Carriage is ready

I feel that the sentence should be -

The Horse and Carriage are ready

And Grammarly agrees with me -

Grammarly screenshot saying "it appears that the singular verb "is" does not agree with the plural compound noun "The horse and carriage"

So what does the subject agree with? 'Is' or 'are'?

ColleenV
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  • I would use "are", although it's been a long time since I announced a horse and carriage. I agree with Grammarly's explanation. A compound subject consisting of distinct items is plural. "The car and driver are ready" is correct, but "the car with driver is ready" is also correct. – Edward Barnard Sep 13 '19 at 18:36
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    @EdwardBarnard Not necessarily. "Liver and onions is my least favorite entree." It depends on whether "horse and carriage" is being viewed as one thing (the carriage pulled by a horse is ready" or two separate things (the horse is ready, and so is the carriage). – ColleenV Sep 13 '19 at 18:41
  • @ColleenV - good counter example. You are certainly correct. We can use singular or plural to indicate whether the compound subject should be thought of as one thing, or multiple things. – Edward Barnard Sep 13 '19 at 18:44
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    The horse and carriage are ready. A horse-and-carriage economy is a thing of the past. – Lambie Sep 13 '19 at 19:02
  • This question is a duplicate of which one? –  Sep 13 '19 at 19:06
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    @metaturso There should be a link in a box at the top of the question to https://ell.stackexchange.com/questions/151717/in-the-sentence-drinking-and-driving-is-dangerous-why-does-the-verb-to-be – ColleenV Sep 13 '19 at 20:00
  • Google Ngram Viewer shows 'horse and carriage is' and 'horse and carriage are' about equal in usage, and also 'was/were' and 'horse and cart is/are/was/were'. – Sydney Sep 13 '19 at 22:54
  • The "liver and onions" example is irrelevant since the predicative complement "entrée" is singular -- hence singular agreement is normal. In your "horse and carriage" example, there is no predicative complement, so there's more flexibility. I would suggest that plural "are" is more appropriate. – BillJ Sep 14 '19 at 15:58
  • Aha. I was completely blind to it. –  Sep 15 '19 at 10:16

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