Subject-Verb agreement with compound subjects

[Carol]

--- In HPFGU-OTChatter at yahoogroups.com, "Goddlefrood" <gav_fiji at ...>
wrote:
>
> > CJ much earlier:
> > "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 
> 
> Goddlefrood:
> 
> I'm not a grammarian and know very little about the rules of 
grammar per se. I do know that the answer to the above would be to
insert 'are'. Then it sounds right. Any inserion of other possible
conjugations of the verb to be would sound wrong to a native of the
benighted isles, even were he residing in the Clundy or indeed on its
other side.
>
Carol responds:

Oops. Wrong. "Are" is used for singular subjects joined by "and" but
not "or." "I are" and "he are" are both incorrect. Singular subjects
joined by "or" remain singular and take a singular verb. If the verb
form differs, as in this case, the verb agrees with the nearest noun.

However, since the correct construction, "Either he or I am going"
sounds absurd, as does the incorrect "Either he or I is going," the
best solution is to rephrase, as CJ's instincts told him to do:
"Either he's going or I am" or "Either he or I will go."

BTW, "sounding right" often leads people astray, as does
hypercorrection, the tendency to "correct" a construction that has
been labeled wrong with no explanation to the supposedly correct
alternative--for example, changing "him and me" to "he and I" even
when "him and me" is correct, resulting in solecisms like "between he
and I."

Carol, who thinks that standard usage should still be taught even if
prescriptive grammar isn't