Verb tense help please.?

Question

"There (was/were) a peanuts cartoon and a few mother goose ryhmes pinned to the bulletin board."


Could anybody tell me how to correct the sentence above and explain why you corrected it.

thank you so much.


oh could anybody tell me also what is verb tense consistency and some example.

Nena you are so great.

but i have a problem now look on the same question and the answeres they gave me.

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=AgCjmLhc0VQSq9gNIX3FzePsy6IX;_ylv=3?qid=20070925180824AAvyxPd

Ok thanks Nena, i believe you because you're my kababayan. :)

bopols thank you too.

Nena one more thing please. I'm bad at verb tense.

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=Ag2CSK0syF9Z1dDUEQoX6I_sy6IX;_ylv=3?qid=20070925183022AAuMBew

Nena you didn't answer the last link i provided,please answer it for me because the 3 answere doesn't make sense to me.

So i can sleep soundly too.

Nena you didn't answer the last link i provided,please answer it for me because the 3 answere doesn't make sense to me.

So i can sleep soundly too.

Answer 1

verb-subject agreement

the verb form (whether singular or plural) should follow the subject. in your example: there WAS a Peanuts cartoon and a few Mother Goose rhymes pinned to the bulletin board.

subject is cartoon - singular so use the singular verb form - was

this sentence actually has 2 subjects; the other is "mother goose rhymes"....in cases like this, the verb form follows the subject closest to it - cartoon

grammatically, it is better to say -
There was a Peanuts cartoon and a few Mother Goose rhymes pinned to the bulletin board.

_____________________
nena is VERY sure of her answer...here's the rule

When the parts of a compound subject are joined by
"or, but, either ... or, neither ... nor, not only ... but also"
the verb must agree with the subject nearest to the verb.

Examples:
Neither the Oregon players nor the coach was overconfident.

Neither the Oregon coach nor the players were intimidated by Arizona.

very easy to follow - when in doubt
http://www.grammarbook.com/grammar/subjectVerbAgree.asp

_______________

last correction: 2nd subject of your sentence is "few" - which is singular so the verb form "was" is really correct. now, nena can sleep soundly

____________
back again: I will just email it to you.

Answer 2

Ahm I believe the sentence would be better if written this way:

There were a few Mother Goose rhymes and a Peanuts cartoon pinned to the bulletin board.

Why?

Because this sentence obviously points out to two things. It has two subjects-- the Peanuts cartoons and the Mother Goose rhymes. We cannot say these two are of the same theme though.

Nena's rule if read carefully pertains to the rule about OR and NOR but does not cover the rule for AND which is a separate one.

If two subjects that cannot be taken as one are joined by and, then the verb should be plural as it pertains to a plural subject.

i.e.

The CPU and the monitor were both taken to the technician for repairs.

A singular verb would then just be used if the subjects joined by and can be taken as one.

i.e.

Bacon and eggs is my favorite breakfast.

(Note: In here, bacon and eggs are taken as one-- being a food for breakfast.)

There was confusion in your sentence as to how it was constructed. People get confused with the subject Peanuts cartoons. Because it is singular, people tend to put a singular verb as well. But take note of the two subjects.

I hope this helps.

Answer 3

hello there...i read every single answer to every link you posted and here is the correct way of saying it and i'll show you how i ended up with it:

first, remove the proper nouns so you don't confuse yourself. (Peanuts and Mother Goose)...you would have:

There (was/were) a cartoon and a few rhymes pinned to the bulletin board.

if you choose "was"...... There was a cartoon and a few rhymes pinned to the bulletin board......technically, that is incorrect because you have two subjects in the sentence: "cartoon and rhymes" which would be plural.

if you choose "were".....There were a cartoon and a few rhymes pinned to the bulletin board.....that is awkward because of the use of "a" before the word "cartoon".

it can get confusing but remember this: you should ALWAYS be able to flip the subjects in your sentence and still use the same verb tense to know it is correct.

the proper way to write this sentence is:

There were "cartoon and rhymes" pinned to the bulletin board.

"There were Peanuts cartoon and a few Mother Goose rhymes pinned to the bulletin board." or "There were a few Mother Goose rhymes and Peanuts cartoon pinned to the bulletin board".

Answer 4

Your answer should be:

"There were a Peanuts cartoon and a few Mother Goose rhymes pinned to the bulletin board."

Your sentence refers to plural subjects: the Peanuts cartoon and a few Mother Goose rhymes.

I also took the liberty of correcting "peanuts" to "Peanuts" (proper name of a cartoon strip) and "mother goose" to "Mother Goose" (proper name of a character). I also corrected your spelling of "ryhmes" to "rhymes" in case you are also expected to correct spellings.

The rule on VERB TENSE CONSISTENCY is this: if you are writing in the present tense, do not shift to the past tense, or vice-versa unless it is absolutely necessarily.

For instance, don't write: "Suddenly I FEEL (present) in need of a little reassurance. I TURNED (past) around and quickly SCAN (present) the rows of guests, looking for Luke's face."

But write: ""Suddenly I FEEL (present) in need of a little reassurance. I TURN (present) around and quickly SCAN (present) the rows of guests, looking for Luke's face."

Answer 5

A "tense" means the time in which the action took or will take place. In English you have the two present tenses: The "I work" form is what happens regularly and the "I am working" form which says what is happening now. A good example of the difference between the two would be: "He smokes 10 cigarettes a day but right now he is not smoking". Then there is the Perfect Tense which started in the past but continues into the present, e.g., "I have worked here for 10 years" which means I still work here, and the Preterite tense which started and ended in the past, e.g., "I worked there for 10 years". This indicates that you no longer work there. Then there is the pluperfect tense which started in the past before something else in the past, e.g., We had seen that film in the cinema before we watched the DVD." And most difficult of all is the future tense formed either with "will" or "going to", e.g., "We are going to buy the tickets tomorrow" or "If you come next week, we will meet you at the station." But sometimes we express the future with the present tense, e.g., "I am seeing him next week." "We are buying the tickets next week." And if that isn't complicated enough for poor foreigners learning English, every one of those time periods can be expressed in the regular or in the continuous forms: "We will buy the tickets next week." "We will be buying the tickets next week". "We buy tickets from the travel agent." "We are buying the tickets from the travel agent" We shopped all morning". "We were shopping all morning, when ..." "We have bought the tickets." "We have been buying tickets this morning" "We had bought the tickets then they dropped the price." We had been shopping when the rain started." And finally, all of these tenses and forms also occur in the Passive voice: The tickets were bought for us by the travel agent" and so on.

Answer 6

The correct word is "were". According to the "Harbrace College Handbook":

"Two or more antecedents joined by 'and' are referred to by a plural pronoun; two or more singular antecedents joined by 'or' or 'nor' are referred to by a singular pronoun."

That means you would say - Solde and Joe WERE walking down the street.
The same way you would say after simplification - There were cartoon and rhymes (or rhymes and cartoon), or you could say 'cartoon and rhymes were'.

Answer 7

WAS.

Reference is to a cartoon (singular). What tends to confuse is "peanuts" which is, per se, plural. But "peanuts" in this case refers to the cartoon series called "Peanuts" (which, if memory serves me right, was created by Schulz).

Answer 8

I would put
There WAS a peanut carton because there is only one peanut carton and the verb is pertaining to that
but i cant guarantee anything its just a guess

Answer 9

I can't help but notice, that you accuse some other player in one of your answers of steeling your question, are you really this dumb?