Grammar question
 

Heya, I'd like your opinion on this:

I'm reviewing a brief right now, and there are several sentences with this construction:

"The only evidence were the affidavits."

Now, to me, that's incorrect agreement between the subject and verb. If "evidence" is the subject, then it should read, "The only evidence was the affidavits."

But that sounds wrong. Maybe "evidence" is a collective noun? Maybe the verb "to be" is reflexive and is messing me up.

If you reverse it, to say "The affidavits were the only evidence" that sounds better, and I could reword it. But I was always taught that the sentence construction should be the same either way (subject first, or object first, you still have to have agreement.)

Looks ok to me as is. Evidence is plural here so you need to use were not was.

you think "evidence' is plural?

Yes.... I think so. You can't say evidences. If there was only one affidavit it would be singular.

Imma say was. Gut reaction/reasons stated. But maybe it's different in American grammar and/or legalese.

The only deer I shot was Bambi.
The only deer I shot were Bambi and his mom.

No, evidence does not get pluralized in that way -Looked it up in my big old oxford. Evidence means one or more pieces of whatever. (paraphrasing here)

I believe 'evidence' is both the singular and the plural:
as in 'some evidence' and 'a piece of evidence'

but you would say some evidence was provided, not some evidence were provided.

I guess it is sort of acting like a collective noun...

"Evidence" is plural. It belongs to a special class of words called plurale tantum, nouns that have only a plural form.

Therefore, the construction in your example is correct.

But I know from my copy editor friend that Brits and Americans use those diffently -one of us says "the team was" and the other says "the team were" and I'm way too embedded here to know which is which, or even if it's relevant here, so I think i'd better duck out now

But you wouldn't say "The affidavits was the only evidence" because the verb and the subject don't match up - which is closer to what's being said here.

well, I'm glad I'm not the only one confused.

It's like the words "assortment" and "collection" and "bunch" and "group" etc which are singular even though they refer to many things.

Is there evidence that "Evidence" is a plurale tantum? it's not given as on in the Oxford, whereas the other examples mentioned in the Wiki article are.

right, because there the "were" applies to affidavits, which is clearly plural

It's a singulare tantum, according to the plurale tantum Wikipedia page.

One of our salesmanagers pages for "2 available sales personnel"

okay, yes--I now think it is a collective noun, and thus can take a singular or plural verb depending on the context and sentence structure.

Glad to know everyone's paying attention in class this morning! Just to mess you up, here's another excerpt:

there is a scintilla of evidence that limitations was tolled . . .

and in this case "limitations" is singular, because it's shorthand for "statute of limitations."

Doncha just love grammar?

The only evidence were the affidavits.
The only evidence was the affidavit.

Were/was depends on whether the object is singular or plural.

"The only evidence was the affidavits."
The affidavits were the only evidence.
I don't see why the sentences have to work the same both way round, you can have a subject in the singular and an object in the plural, or vice versa.
The only food left was five loaves.
The five loaves were the only food left.

"there is a scintilla of evidence that limitations was tolled . . . "
In this instance was is correct if everyone understands the jargon, that "limitations" is singular, because it's shorthand for "statute of limitations."

Dammit, made me go look it up...

So here's another explanation:

If I was If I were

From Wordwizard.com

So I'm wrong (above).

but that rule doesn't apply here though--this is not a case of the subjective tense. That rule applies to something like this:

"If I were to go on a cruise, I'd choose the Bahamas."

Or even subjunctive mood.

"subjunctive" yep. a bit subjective if you ask me . . .

It made me tense. ;)

Them there afferdavids was the only evidense

And now a joke:
A businessman from Boston had been away from his hometown for nearly 20 years and dearly missed the local seafood. On a trip back east he landed at Logan and was no sooner in a cab when he urgently told the driver "I MUST get Scrod!"
The cabbie turned to look at the man and said, "I've heard it said a lot of ways but never in the Past Pluperfect Subjunctive."

(lafs). and THAT is why we all love the English language so much!

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!

Wouldn't you just say "We went to the movies" (Here 'you' and 'I' is being used as a subject.
AND
"It doesn't matter to us/either of us" (whereas here it's being used as an object and this is what determines which pronoun you use).

If I've missed the point completely (entirely possible), let me know immediately.

You've missed the point completely. ;)

Those sentences were just simple ones I came up with to make the point. No one ever has to go to the movies if they don't want to. :lol:

"This is the evidence."

"These are the evidence."

I stand corrected. Undertoad is right, singulare tantum. Evidence is "singular".

So, to reiterate:

"Do you think I'm right, and it should read, "The only evidence was . . . "?

I think it is an unnecessarily awkward construction. I think your suggestion is an improvement. I think another improvement would be "The affidavits were...". That way you can marry the subject/verb agreement *and* keep the original singular evidence.

thanks.

How about "advice", I was just thinking about that word, is that plural or singluarey?

"I got lots of advice"

"I got one person's advice"

but one wouldn't say "I got a good advice from my friend"

same with "water" and "smoke"

Yeah, it would be "some good smoke" as in "damn, that was some good smoke your friend had." :D

Although I suppose you could say you want a smoke.

[professional linguist]Yes. [/professional linguist]

"This is my advice."
"These are my advice."

"This is the water."
"These are the water."

"This is smoke."
"These are the smoke."

In each case, these words ring singular to my ear. So, since there isn't a plural form of these words, that makes them singulare tantum. Additionally, they are examples of mass nouns. Ones that can't be quantified by a number, in contrast to collective nouns, as Cloud identified "evidence" earlier, in error I believe. I think evidence is another mass noun.

Also, in the examples quoted above, the change in subj/verb agreement was happening with the count modifier. "This is the (one)" "These are the (several)". The very fact that you attach this counter is because they're uncountable. What you are counting is not advice, it's "lots" or "person".

When I leave a voice message for my wife I often start with, "Hey, it's me..."

But I wonder if it shoud be "Hey, it is I..."

Probably, but it is a causal relationship where casual created a casualty of the more formal language.
I call, therefore I am.

I blame it all on Janis Joplin and Kris Kristopherson.