is/are

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The Cameron Highlands is an interesting place in Malaysia.

The Cameron Highlands are a famous scenic spot nowadays.

Can I use 'are' in the second sentence? I believe it should be 'is' in both sentences.

Thanks.

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I say "is" in both places, but I believe this may be one of those places where UK and US English diverge.

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I think it depends on if you are talking about the Cameron Highlands (a proper noun, singular) or if you are talking about highlands that happen to be in Cameron (you'd treat "highlands" as plural).

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The Cameron Highlands is an interesting place in Malaysia.

The Cameron Highlands are a famous scenic spot nowadays.

The following is the explanation given by a native speaker for using 'is' in the first sentence and 'are' in the second. Do you native speakers agree with his reasoning?

One of those subtle idiosyncrasies of English - it depends on whether you are going to regard "The Cameron Highlands" or ""scenic spot"/"interesting place" as subject of the sentence . In these sentences, either 'is' or 'are' could be used.

Many thanks.

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Cameron Highlands is the subject of both sentences.....

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DrewDad wrote:

Cameron Highlands is the subject of both sentences.....

Can I conclude that my friend's explanation is not acceptabe?

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I wouldn't immediately agree with it, but I seem to recall that there are some special rules when using the verb "to be."

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Yoong Liat wrote:

Do you native speakers agree with his reasoning?

I am not quite a native speaker, but I disagree. As DrewDad indicated, the grammatical distinction that counts is between a "proper noun" and a "common noun" A proper noun is always singular, even if it looks like a plural. For example, General Motors is, the United States is. By contrast, common knowns are inflected according to their numbers: "We had the Joneses for dinner; they were delightful."

Common nouns or proper nouns are sometimes difficult to tell apart, and the example of Cameron Highlands looks like a close call. Neither version will make you sound stupid. Just pick one and use it consistently.

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DrewDad wrote:

I wouldn't immediately agree with it, but I seem to recall that there are some special rules when using the verb "to be."

IMO, the 'to be' rule would not be such that both 'is' and 'are' can be used.

The Cameron Highlands is an interesting place in Malaysia.

The Cameron Highlands are a famous scenic spot nowadays.

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Yoong Liat wrote:

DrewDad wrote:
I wouldn't immediately agree with it, but I seem to recall that there are some special rules when using the verb "to be."

IMO, the 'to be' rule would not be such that both 'is' and 'are' can be used.

I meant there are some weird rules with "to be" when determining the subject/predicate. If my memory serves, which is always suspect.

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Yoong Liat wrote:

The Cameron Highlands is an interesting place in Malaysia.

The Cameron Highlands are a famous scenic spot nowadays.

That looks definitely false to me. It's either "is" in both cases or "are" in both cases.

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This example makes me think of the way soccer/football teams are talked about in the UK. For example:

Quote:

Chelsea have been drawn with Valencia, whom they defeated at the quarter-final stage of last season's competition.

Liverpool take on Porto, Marseille and Beskitas, while Manchester United face a rematch with Roma and Arsenal face trips to Bucharest and Prague.

Arsenal were drawn in Group H along with Steau Bucharest, Slavia Prague and either Sevilla or AEK Athens.

In each case the team name is a proper noun but the plural verb is used. This is why I say there may be some difference between US and UK english. Here, if I'm not mistaken, we would say "Chelsea has been drawn" or "Liverpool takes on Porto".

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Damn! Now I'm officially giving up on English.

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Thomas wrote:

"We had the Joneses for dinner; they were delightful."

How were they prepared, baked, boiled or sauteed?

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parados, W. C. Fields had a taste for the same kind of humor.

Someone asked him, "How do you like children?"

His response: Parboiled!

Other versions have him saying "Fried!" or "Well done" or "They are very good with mustard."

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parados wrote:

Thomas wrote:
"We had the Joneses for dinner; they were delightful."

How were they prepared, baked, boiled or sauteed?

How then is one to avoid such ambiguity?

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In conversational (informal) English, as spoken in my little corner of the world, one could say:

"We had the Joneses over for dinner; they were delightful."

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Re: is/are

Yoong Liat wrote:

The Cameron Highlands is an interesting place in Malaysia.

The Cameron Highlands are a famous scenic spot nowadays.

Can I use 'are' in the second sentence? I believe it should be 'is' in both sentences.

Thanks.

What would prevent 'The Cameron Highlands' from falling into the,

The Rocky Mountains/The Sierra Madres/The Appalachians are,

scenario?

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Yoong Liat wrote:

Can I conclude that my friend's explanation is not acceptabe?

As stated yes. The "subject" of the sentence is not negotiable as explained.

But your friend is on the right path, sometimes a plural word is used to express a singular entity in meaning (explained as a single "scenic spot" by your friend). What your friend is trying to teach you is to try to discern the intended meaning (not the "subject" as this is a grammatical term) of the subject of the sentence. Does the intended reference want to prioritize the individual entities within a group or the group on the whole?

To give an unrelated example I'll use the word "people", which as you know is already plural. My students would often ask me if "peoples" is ever correct and it, in fact, is when you speak of distinct groups of people.

For example: "I met many interesting people in my travels". vs. "I have met many interesting peoples in my travels".

As in this case, it all depends on what meaning you wish to convey. But with proper nouns traditional collocation generally reigns and you'd sound funny if you conjugated differently than tradition dictates.

Note: FreeDuck is correct in that this is a case where usage often differs between UK and American English. And the given sports team examples help delineate such differences.

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Craven de Kere wrote:

Note: FreeDuck is correct in that this is a case where usage often differs between UK and American English. And the given sports team examples help delineate such differences.

Craven,

I don't believe that there is any, or at least any appreciable difference in describing geographic things between BrE and NaE.

And yet we have at least two NaE speakers who seem to believe [honestly, I'm sure] that The Cameron Highlands takes a singular verb. At first blush, the name must have triggered a notional singularity. But why wouldn't this name follow those I mentioned in my last posting, eg, The Rocky Mountains are ... / not The Rocky Mountains is?

Are you teaching ESL in Costa Rica?

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