Talk:Flag of Bonaire

Noun–verb agreement in number

The first sentence of the second paragraph used to read as follows:

The triangles are separated by a white strip, inside of which is a black compass and a red six-pointed star.

I changed is to are in the final clause. The subject of the verb is "a black compass and a red six-pointed star," which is clearly a plural subject, as it has two parts, both of which are subjects of the verb.

SiBr4 reverted my change, contending, "'Is' refers to the white strip" (see the page history). This is clearly in error. The black compass and red six-pointed star are the things that are inside of the white strip (replaced by the pronoun which in the clause). "[A] white strip" is the object of the preposition by, and thus cannot be the subject of any verb.

Let me make it even more obvious. The sentence can be re-written as two sentences, without changing the meaning whatsoever, like this:

The triangles are separated by a white strip. A black compass and a red six-pointed star are inside of the white strip.

Now, the final clause (under debate) has been converted to a simple sentence, in which the subject and verb are even more plainly apparent. This should leave absolutely no doubt for anyone with an elementary understanding of English grammar.

SiBr4, please don't make this inaccurate change again. This is a very simple grammatical issue. Identification of the subject and verb in clause is beyond debate. The subject is plural, so the verb must be plural to agree with the number of the subject. Thank you. Holy (talk) 16:35, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

My fault. If the sentence was of the form "the stripe contains a compass and a star" the verb would be singular, but of course the compass and star are the subject in this case. SiBr₄ (talk) 18:11, 10 July 2013 (UTC)