But seriously, you can change the order of the words to make it sound better:
The affidavits were the only evidence

Yeah, I think so. when in doubt, re-word!

That's true when you take the sentence out of context. Having not read the document I don't know if the context is important here, but perhaps the writer wants to emphasize the word "evidence" and not "affidavits."

that's also a valid point

"The only evidence were the affidavits."

"The only thing in evidence were the affidavits."

Ooh, good point Vana.

hmm; don't see any difference, or clarification in that. It won't work in context anyway, for our purposes.

I disagree with all of you - it should be is.

I remember the first time I was taught that "The group was shown round the castle" was correct. It sounded SO wrong to me.
Same with learning that "you and I" was not always correct, or that "too" can mean excessive as well as also and the letter H is properly pronounced "aitch".

It's all second nature now, but it's funny to remember how outraged I was at the time.

Interesting post and answers btw.

My brother asked me about the 'you and I/you and me' thing. I told him whatever works alone is what you use.

You and I went to the movies. (I went to the movies.)

It doesn't matter to you and me. (It doesn't matter to me.)

I hear it misused by some fairly intelligent folks.

The phrase, 'the only evidence' is not the subject of the sentence, it is a subject complement and is describing affidavits. It is actually a predicate adjective.

:blownup:

"The only things in evidence were the affidavits." Don't plurals have to agree?

And in other news...
Pico just got 900 hotness points for being a parsing ninja

I changed it once and changed it back. I was going for a modifier using evidence as an adjective:)


>pitches college English course grades. . .

You sly devil!