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If I am talking to somebody about a certain group of people in the third person, and then want to refer to the person I am talking with as one of those people, which do I say?

One of them were you

One of them was you.

arik-so
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2 Answers2

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The verb must agree with the subject 'one', therefore it's 'one of them was you'.

Irene
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  • Thanks! But why is it 'one' it has to agree with, and not 'you'? – arik-so Oct 23 '11 at 18:12
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    I don't think you is subject here. Try replacing you by a different person. I would say one of them was him : him is an object. – None Oct 23 '11 at 18:30
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    I'm not sure, but I'd say that the general rule is that the verb in English agrees with the subject, not the complement. In the sentence you are mentioning, 'you' is a complement. – Irene Oct 23 '11 at 18:30
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    @ Laure: the verb 'be' cannot have an object. – Irene Oct 23 '11 at 18:32
  • @ Irene: Quite right, thanks. It is attribute, isn't it? It is not subject anyway. – None Oct 23 '11 at 18:37
  • This confuses me, too. Would you say "One of the boys were those Indians" or "One of those boys was those Indians"? The first one jumps to me as correct (or hell, better yet, "One of them was an Indian", but that's not the point) – Jeremy Oct 23 '11 at 19:13
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    Can 'one boy' be 'those Indians'? Isn't this ungrammatical? There's something wrong with the use of the plural form in 'Indians' I think. Seems to me that'One of them was an Indian' is the only correct sentence here – Irene Oct 23 '11 at 19:21
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    The verb agrees with the subject rather than the complement unless the subject is a word like there, what, who, ... For example, "What is required are fortitude and imagination." – Peter Shor Oct 24 '11 at 18:33
  • "One of those boys were those Indians" can't be correct, since "one of those boys" must be "one boy", and one person cannot be a group of persons. Multiple personalities excepted, of course, but that's a special circumstance. What is happening is the natural (lazy, but natural) tendency to match "boys" to "those Indians". The sentence should be "One of those boys was with those Indians", or "One of those boys belonged to that group of Indians." – WhatRoughBeast Feb 28 '15 at 19:14
  • @Laure In "one of them was him," the him is not the object; rather, it's the predicate noun, restating the subject of the sentence. And for this reason, technically the correct way to say that sentence is "one of them was he", but you'll rarely see this usage. – user3932000 Mar 15 '15 at 01:30
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"One of them" is a noun phrase referring to a single person. Therefore all its verbs are always singular.

This is correct:

One of them was you.

This is not:

One of them were you.

DJClayworth
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