Monday, May 25, 2009

A linguistic style or a mismatch?




















Quarrelling with nagging parents who lack trust, feeling unloved and being wrongly accused is almost every young person's dilemma.

This sentence is taken from an English daily's column offering guidances for readers' predicaments.

I am wondering whether it is a stylistic choice for euphony or a mere mismatch in the writer's use of a singular verb following three subjects.

Dilemma is a situation which can be formed by one or more things/actions/feelings/states of mind/events/circumstances. If we try to replace the verb 'is' with 'form', will the sentence become "Quarrelling with nagging parents who lack trust, feeling unloved and being wrongly accused forms or form almost every young person's dilemma?"

Obviously, the plural verb 'form' is to be used since there are three subjects in the form of noun phrases - 'quarrelling with nagging parents', 'feeling unloved' and 'being wrongly accused'.

Shouldn't the answer to the title question be out now?

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