How to tame verbs that are singular in form but plural in content

Consider the following sentence on page 12 of The Sunday Standard of July 10: “A couple at Kiamunyeki farm, Lanet in Nakuru county is in shock after their three-month-old baby was allegedly stolen by a neighbour…”

I would insert a comma after the word county to separate the main idea from what is but parenthetical information (what German grammarians would dismiss as a nebensatz—a “neighbouring sentence”). The point is that, although, here, the word “couple” is singular in form, it is actually plural in content because what it refers to are two individuals.

That is the question with which a reporter and subeditor of the Standard Group confronted us when they used the singular verb is (“the couple is in shock”) but went on to inform us that the baby was “theirs” (plural). The question was complicated by the fact that, although the word couple is singular in form, it is actually plural in content.

That is clear for all and sundry to see. For what you actually do whenever you add an “s” to the noun “couple” is that you pluralise something that is already plural. Yet there is nothing necessarily wrong with that. For instance, although a nation is already a plurality of human beings, we must pluralise the word nation itself whenever we refer to more than one nation, for instance Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda.

MEAN PLURALITY

We must say nations whenever we mean a plurality of what is already a plurality. Uganda is a nation because, among other things, it is a plurality of human beings. Kenya is a nation for the very same reason. Thus here we have two pluralities of what are already pluralities. That is why you must add an “s” to the word couple to indicate that at least four individuals are involved, namely, two couples.

The question facing us, then, is this: what grammatical number—singular or plural—should your verb take whenever it is controlled by a noun which, although singular in form, is plural in content? The English language has a myriad of such examples, namely, those which are singular in form but semantically plural.

Such substantives include century, couple, herd, myriad itself, multitude, pair, score and twain. Let us reiterate it. In form, the word couple is singular. Yet, in content, it may also represent the plurality of at least two persons—like the couple who got married in your church the other day.

English and other languages have countless such lexical ambiguities, and the learner must make every effort to tame all of them. To couple is to bring together two ideas, items or people—as what a Christian or Muslim priest does whenever he leads a man and a woman into a conjugal formality.

A coupling of that kind also takes place when, for instance, Raila Amolo Odinga’s party signs a pact with William Samoei Ruto’s own or when—as happened only the other day—official Kenya signs a political treaty with official Israel.

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