Were or was? - Page 2

You could say that, but it would not be true. :lengua:

Thanks for the information Angela and Irma. It confirms what I expected that in both languages sometimes third person plural and singular nouns are acceptable.

@Poli: En los ejemplos de Irma se puede, porque "los Beatles" es plural, pero no en el caso en el que el nombre de la banda es singular.

Los Who eran/era el mejor grupo. :good:
El mejor grupo eran/era los Who. :good:

El mejor grupo era "Queen". :good:
El mejor grupo eran "Queen". :bad:

"Queen" era el mejor grupo. :good:
"Queen" eran el mejor grupo. :bad:

Then that's a major difference between English and Spanish. We would
say :the best group was queen too, but there are times when as
group is refered to as they. You would say: I remember when they played at the Palladium.
Rules get a little bit fuzzy here, but sometimes we use they instead of
it if we are referring to a group of humans and some other units of living creatures.

I don't think there's a difference, poli.
When 'band' is the subject, in both languages, it is a singular subject and we conjugate accordingly. It's when we stop thinking of the group as a whole, and start making reference to the individuals that make up the band, that we switch to the plural.

It's possible to always speak about a band with singular constructs if we focus on the band as a whole. For example:

The band competes at noon.
It is the final band in the competition.
Although it's a relatively new band, it could very well take first place.

Compare with these statements that drop the idea of a collective, but then shifts the focus back to the group as a whole.

The band competing at noon is the final band in the competition.
They have been battling some illnesses this week, so it seems that our final band isn't going to place very high in the competition.

In Spanish the subject must agree with the verb in person and number. So in a sentence like:

La mejor banda era "los Beatles".

"La mejor banda" is the subject, while "los Beatles" is the attribute (copulative sentence).

Whereas in:

La mejor banda eran "los Beatles".

"Los Beatles" is the subject and "la mejor banda" is the attribute.

However (there is always a "however") it is recommended that in such sentences, when we have plural and singular in both subject/attribute (in some copulative sentences the question of which is the subject and the attribute is not so clear), we should use the plural form. So, the best way of saying this sentence would be:

La mejor banda eran "los Beatles".

This is just a "recommendation", not a rule; using "era" is not agrammatical, but it doesn't sound as well as with the plural form.

And another "however" would be that, sometimes, we are interested in highlight the subject. For instance if I'm asked:

¿Cuál era la mejor banda en los 60?

And I want to highlight the subject ("la mejor banda"), I'd change the construction and I' say:

La mejor banda era la de "los Beatles".

Le guste a Perikles o no. :p :D

*sigh* sobre gustos no hay nada escrito :lengua:

Eso dicen, pero no es verdad. ;) :rose:

Just adding to what has been said: if the subject (with the words "banda"/"grupo"/"cuarteto", etc.) is not explicit, we rather tend to talk about the members of the band. (Which I tried unsuccessfully to show in the paragraph I invented.)

However, keeping the subject doesn't harm:

Queen era una gran banda. Ahora (la banda) está de gira sin Freddie.
Queen era un gran grupo. Ahora (los miembros del grupo) están de gira sin Freddie. :)

Oh no it weren't! (This is colloquial, but incorrect usage)

:confused: I thought it was clear now. :thinking: :D

Okay, so I am going to re-visit this thread..... with the same questions.... because I'm still stuck on this. This week I was reading a commentary comparing the work of an attorney to that of a pastor of a church. In one sentence, he writes the following:

"Nuestra grey son nuestros clientes."

Is "grey" the subject here? If so, then why does it not agree in number with the verb? I asked a friend who is a native Spanish speaker about this, and she insisted that there is no way to say this sentence with "es". Only "son".

So how do I know, in a situation like this, that I am supposed to use a plural verb instead of a singular? :(

I think that nuestros clientes are the subject. Similar examples of inversion of word order can be found with lo que. E.g. taking one of the 54 hits for lo que [v] son from the Corpus del español:

Lo que tenemos son actores mediocres.

There is a way using "es"

Nuestra grey es nuestra clientela.

And since I don't recall any of my grammar, I'll leave it here. :)

The entire sentence goes like this: Nuestro púlpito es nuestro escritorio, nuestra grey son nuestros clientes y nuestro mensaje es la honestidad, la paz, la reconciliación, la justicia, la rectitud y la verdad.

Wouldn't there be some sort of parallel construction there? Or all they not all inverted word orders?

This is a very interesting thread.

In your sentence "Nuestra grey son nuestros clientes" the subject of the sentence is "nuestros clientes". It's like saying "Nuestros clientes son nuestra grey" (Ellos son nuestra grey). Just turn the sentence around. if it makes sense, use the verb in plural. You'll be right most of the time.

It's a difficult subject to explain. I still have problems figuring out if I should say "Police are coming" or "Police is coming":cool:. I've heard both.:worried:

But in Spanish there's no confusion: "La policía ya viene" - "La policía está en camino".

Just think, in English "people" is plural, in Spanish "gente" is singular.

"People is..." is another frequent mistake many English learning people make.

;)

Adding:
You can invert it this way:

Nuestro escritorio es nuestro púlpito (this could change the meaning a little, not much, but maybe you should leave it alone), nuestros clientes son nuestra grey y la honestidad, la paz, la reconciliación, la justicia, la rectitud y la verdad SON nuestro mensaje.

In my opinion the intended meaning of the sentence is not changed at all.

:)