Question

The crew, made of clowners and krumpers, have visited Italy, Hong Kong, and France.

Which subject-verb agreement rule is being broken in the sentence above?

Answer 1

Hah!! WoW~ I'm surprised I remember this from e2020!! x'D You're in luck ;P i actually paid attention in those English sessions~ @leetmel

Answer 2

Well, the rule that was broken here would be the separation of an ESSENTIAL APPOSITIVE PHRASE (which, in this case, would be: 'made of clowners and krumpers') from the rest of the sentence.

It's considered ESSENTIAL (rather than NON-ESSENTIAL) because the sentence would not make sense without that extra piece of information... Try removing the appositive "made of clowners and krumpers" and see if the sentence flows correctly, it would look like this:

The crew have visited Italy, Hong Kong, and France. (Although it IS a complete sentence, it makes you wonder...:"wait! which crew?!"... you need MORE information to help you understand the sentence, so that appositive would be 'essential' for your understanding)

Commas indicate that the information in between is not essential to the sentence, but seeing as to how the sentence would make no sense without "made of clowners and krumpers", an error has been made by adding those commas~

Answer 3

UNLESS~

Answer 4

We're talking about the error that was made by using the plural verb "have visited" with the collective noun (which would require a singular verb) "crew"...

It should be: "the crew.... HAS visited..."

Anyway~ Hope that Helped *^-^
Good Luck!