Was/Were

popmuze · Aug 31, 2007

I keep going back and forth on this sentence:

"The early years of the 20th Century was a great time to be a cobbler."

"The early years of the 20th Century were a great time...."

Which is correct (forgetting for the moment the cobbler part)?

maestrowork · Aug 31, 2007

"Were."

"Years" - "were"

Rich · Aug 31, 2007

On both sentences you chose "years" as the subject. It's plural, so it's "were." Anything after the "of" doesn't influence the verb as far as singular or plural.

Do this: The start of the 20th century (or, at the begining of...)was a great time to be a cobbler.

maestrowork · Aug 31, 2007

Or "the turn of the 20th century" - "was"

Rich · Aug 31, 2007

That wasn't too difficult a question, popmuze, but it reminds me of a gal here who was great with our language, and I don't know where she's gone. Her id was reph.

I do miss her.

popmuze · Aug 31, 2007

Now if I were to put it:
"The early part of the 20th Century was a great time....

Rich · Aug 31, 2007

Or, if the cobbler is a character you can give the year.

retterson · Aug 31, 2007

IMHO -- the problem is not the selection of the verb.

The problem with the sentence is the subject ("years") is plural while the predicate nominative ("time") is singular. The sentence sounds awkward because of this. Fix this issue and the verb fix will be obvious -- but it seems you may have hit on this solution.

Perhaps: "It was a good time to be a cobbler in the early part of the 20th century."

Or, for more punch, perhaps "190x was a good year to be a cobbler."

popmuze · Sep 1, 2007

I'm leaning toward:
The first decade of the 20th Century was a good time to be a cobbler.

Sandi LeFaucheur · Sep 1, 2007

Yeah, that sounds good.

Ummm...why was it a good time to be a cobbler? Just curious. Obviously, now is a bad time, because everyone chucks out their shoes rather than get them soled, but why specifically was the first decade of the 20th century better than the 1860s or the 1920s?

popmuze · Sep 1, 2007

Good catch there. Actually, the cobbler was a red herring. The book I'm writing is about songwriters. But I was just trying to be coy.

Rich · Sep 1, 2007

With whom?

popmuze · Sep 1, 2007

With the general reading public of AW.

Was/Were

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