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Thu 26 Mar, 2015 02:30 pm
Do you think whether the grammar of the sentence "With spring comes spring tourists, and with spring tourists come ugly tourist behavior" is okay?
Context:
Ugly tourists in Spring
With spring comes spring tourists, and with spring tourists come ugly tourist behavior.
Last weekend, over 100,000 visitors descended upon Wuhan University for the annual cherry blossom festival. Cherry blossom lovers crowded the 200-meter-long road, turning the usually quiet campus into a crowded park.
A man was caught on camera climbing onto a tree to make petals fall as "cherry blossom rain” for photos.
Online, criticism has been loud and unequivocal. Top posts simply fumed, "Such poor quality (manners)!" and "What a loss of face."
@oristarA,
Quote:With spring comes spring tourists, and with spring tourists come ugly tourist behavior.
the second verb should be "comes", because behaviour is a singular subject.
Bad behaviour
comes with the spring tourists.
so
With spring comes spring tourists, and with spring tourists comes ugly tourist behavior.
@McTag,
McTag wrote:
Quote:With spring comes spring tourists, and with spring tourists come ugly tourist behavior.
the second verb should be "comes", because behaviour is a singular subject.
Bad behaviour
comes with the spring tourists.
so
With spring comes spring tourists, and with spring tourists comes ugly tourist behavior.
Thank you McTag.
I wonder why not have used "with spring come spring tourists" because "spring tourists" is a plural subject.
@oristarA,
Good point, and I didn't notice that.
It works with the singular (and sounds a bit better, to me) since "Spring tourists" can be thought of as a singular group.
But grammatically, you are right.
@chai2,
chai2 wrote:
He comes.
They come.
The question is that "With spring
comes spring tourists, and with spring tourists
come ugly tourist behavior" sounds really good, though the use of "comes" and "come" is incorrect grammatically.
@oristarA,
To me it doesn't sound good, or correct at all.
@McTag,
McTag wrote:
It works with the singular (and sounds a bit better, to me) since "Spring tourists" can be thought of as a singular group.
I think this is the key. Native speakers hear spring tourists as a singular group.
____
Chai and McTag are right. It doesn't sound good the other way to native speakers - or people who've had it as a primary language for 50+ years.
@ehBeth,
Right.
Orister, "tourists" are not a singular group, as the replacement word would be "they"
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