Cabbage and beets is not a single dish. Does the word ‘together’ make the subject singular?
Answer
First off, the verb “to sound” is a little tricky, because, depending on interpretation, almost any “plural” subject could actually be singular.
For example, we could interpret your phrase as:
“Cabbage and beets together” sounds good.
Where “cabbage and beets together” is viewed as a singular phrase. You can even extend this to:
“Cabbages” sounds good.
More directly to the point, is the subject here singular or plural? In this case, either work.
It all has to do with your use of “cabbage”. Cabbage is both a singular and a mass noun (countable and uncountable). In this way, “cabbage and beets” is the same thing as “macaroni and cheese”.
We have a tendency to describe dishes in English uses uncountable nouns: ice cream and chocolate syrup, pumpkin with butter squash, spaghetti and meatballs, etc. These dishes are all single dishes, so we treat them as single items.
In your case, “cabbage and beets” sounds like a single dish, which is why I would treat them as a singular item. However, you are also listing two subjects, so I would also accept it as plural. The earlier context of the conversation may also help here.
One way to overcome the issues to to explicitly pluralize “cabbages”. Then, you would say “Cabbages and beets are…”. Again, they could be a singular dish, and then referring to it singularly would be acceptable, but “cabbages and beets” is broadly inconsistent with dish names.
Attribution
Source : Link , Question Author : akoo1010 , Answer Author : Nick2253
