Dave's ESL Cafe's Student Discussion Forums

[Hiroaki Sone]

I feel a little uncomfortable with 'is' in the last sentence. Shouldn't it be 'are' as it, I think, should correspond with 'the things,' not the clause 'His mother sets aside the things he doesn't like'?

Gogol receives several dictionaries, several calculators, several Cross pen-and-pencil sets, several ugly sweaters. His parents give him an Instamatic camera, a new sketchbook, colored pencils and the mechanical pen he asked for, and twenty dollars to spend as he wishes. Sonia has made him a card with Magic Markers, on paper she's ripped out of one of his own sketchbooks, which says "Happy Birthday Goggles," the name she insists on calling him instead of Dada. His mother sets aside the things he doesn't like, which is most everything, to give to his cousins the next time they go to India. ('The Namesake' by Jhumpa Lahiri)
_________________
JH7JHH/ First Class ham radio operator. N9COW in U.S.

[Eric Thompson]

Dear Hiroaki Sone: You have a valid point in questioning the use of 'is', referring to the 'things' he doesn't like. You're looking backward in the sentence, but the answer lies forward in the sentence: 'everything' is grammatically singular, so 'is' is used. But 'everything' is a collective pronoun, so it is plural in its feeling, and encompasses 'things'. Ok? -- Eric