Subject-Verb agreement with compound subjects

[Carol]

--- In HPFGU-OTChatter at yahoogroups.com, Lee Kaiwen <leekaiwen at ...> wrote:
>
> CJ wrote:
> "Either he or I ____ going."
> 
> Carol:
> You're correct that the verb in an "or" phrase agrees with the
nearest noun or pronoun.
> 
> CJ (Now):
> This is not a rule I'd ever heard -- let alone been taught -- until
 recently. As I said, I was taught to rewrite *because* there was no
solution.
> 
> I've the feeling (admittedly not based on much) that the
nearer-subject rule is one of those inventions of grammarians who
can't stand the fact that there's no solution and take it upon
themselves to invent one.

Carol responds:

All I know is that in the olden days when I was in elementary school,
junior high, and high school, prescriptive grammar was the norm, and
we were taught the "nearest noun" rule along with the rule that the
verb is singular when singular subjects are joined by "or" (as opposed
to a plural verb for singular subjects joined by "and").

To quote my trusty Plain English Handbook, used in my high school
English classes: If a subject is composed of both singular and plural
forms joined by *or* or *nor*, the verb must agree with the nearer:
Neither he nor the boys play golf. The other boys or Henry is to blame." 

Yeah, I know. Those examples are ugly and awkward and I would rephrase
them. They are, nevertheless, correct. 

And, of course, *someone* invented the rules of grammar. I think it
was primarily eighteenth-century grammarians trying to impose logic on
English. "The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language" says
that "a new period of interest and involvement in English grammar"
began in the 1760s. "over 200 works on grammar and rhetoric appeared
between 1750 and 1800," the most influential being "A short
Introduction to English Grammar" by Bishop Robert Lowth (1762) and
"English Grammar" by Lindley Murray (1794). According to the
encyclopedia, it took only a generation for what would later be called
"traditional grammar" to take root (pp. 78-79).

A later chapter notes that the traditional (prescriptive) grammar
developed in the late eighteenth century "developed rapidly in the
19th century and was strongly in evidence even in the 1960s" (p.
192)--which pretty much explains my own education in English grammar!
In fact, I remember a shift in attitude toward education and grammar
that took place in the early 1970s when I was taking college courses
in English education. the ground shifted under my feet; everything I'd
been taught or experienced as a student, from traditional grammar to
tracking (separating college-bound students from "regular track"
students who would end up as mechanics or housewives), was being
questioned.

But I digress. I suggest that you hunt up an eighteenth- or
nineteenth-century English grammar, preferably Lowth's or Murry's
(which should be available in your university's library) to see what
those books say about subject/verb agreement in compound subjects
joined by "or." I suspect that you'll find the nearest-noun rule in
one or both. And while you're at it, you might check to see how they
label the pronoun cases. I very much doubt that you'll find accusative
or dative!

As for rewriting, I'm all for it any time a sentence sounds awkward,
whether it's technically correct or incorrect.

Carol, delighted to see such an interest in grammar on the list