WAS or WERE with an object of a preposition.

Question

Which is correct?

A) Early in his efforts, nine months of work were destroyed when...

B) Early in his efforts, nine months of work was destroyed when...

"A" sounds correct but wasn't it the "work" that was destroyed not the "nine months" so "B" should be correct?

Thanks.

Answer 1

"B" is wrong. The subject of the sentence is "nine months." ("Of work" is a prepositional phrase modifying the subject.)

The subject of the sentence (nine months) must agree with the verb. Since "nine months" is plural the verb is "were." You would not say "nine months was destroyed." ("Work" is the object of the prepositional phrase and therefore not relevant.)

You need to be careful with intervening prepositional phrases that separate the subject from the verb. This type of question commonly appears on the SAT.

The editors at the Hollywood Reporter were correct. Subject-verb agreement always depends on the subject. To answer your question correctly, you need to look at the subject ("months"), not at the word closest to the verb ("work").

So, we would not say, "Nine months (of work) was destroyed." The correct form is "Nine months (of work) were destroyed.

When it comes to subject-verb agreement, the prepositional phrase is irrelevant.

Answer 2

My two cents.

The question is moot because the "work" is not measured in "months" - that is the ungrammatical part.

The sentence should say "nine months' worth of work was destroyed..." in which case worth would determine was. Alternately, the sentence could be "the work of nine months was destroyed..."

As it stands, "nine months" functions as a qualifier of the work, like "most" or "all," in which case work determines the verb has, e.g. "most of the work was destroyed."

Neither A nor B is grammatically correct.

Answer 3

A) is correct "months" is the subject, which is plural. "were" is plural, "was" is incorrect.

subject and verb have to agree.

Although there is the subjunctive mood where "were" can go with a singular subject

example: If I were the president, then I'd change things. "were" is the subjunctive mood because it's counterfactual. I am not the president. It would be incorrect to say "If I was the president" even though that has subject and verb agree.

But in months of work, there is no counterfactual. But if there were, it's even more reason to use were, not was. IF I was the president would be correct if I actually was the president.

Answer 4

Hi Valory,

Yes, B is correct because the work (singular tense) was destroyed. And in the case of this sentence, all nine months are put together in one cluster of a time period as opposed to being separate but chronological (i.e. January-September in the calendar).

I hope this helps!