Teacher Discussion Forums

I signed up, continuing the topic of an old thread which attracted some seemingly keen minds, in the hope that I can benefit*.

Li Ming: "Her acting is very good."
Bill: "And so are her singing & dancing."

This screams out to me as clunky, unnatural and rule governed. So much so that I proposed that students change the text in the book & received enquiries as to why.

I could have fielded these better.

I'm regarding S&D as activites of a performer (conceptual proximity?) which don't have to be performed simultaneously in order to change the verb form from the norm.

And, dammit - are just sounds wrong!!
But "so are her singing & dancing abilities" doesn't.

But I'm stumped if I can generate other strings to replicate this apparent exception.
Maybe this..........which works 'better' with connected speech.

She's trash!
And so's her brother and her uncle.

My head hurts now - whats going on?
Am I throwing the class NS English?

*The response in the China forum started well, but closed with "who cares?" (nice buch of people over there....)

You have to apply HARZER'S RULE.

You better ask Harzer about it.

As far as I can tell we have wide latitude to make different agreements, especially in recent years, and it isn't a matter to be heavily corrective about.