"Game is" or "game are"? ( subject -verb agreement)

Chepio, in South Korea, asked whether to use the singular or plural form of the verb be (is or are) in this sentence:

• The only game I hunt is/are insects.

This is a tricky question! Here is a step-by-step way to find an answer:

1. As with any question about subject-verb agreement, the first step is to determine what the subject of the verb is. In the sentence above, the subject of be is game. It might look like I is the subject, because it is closer to the verb be, but I is the subject of an embedded "that-clause," with the that deleted, as shown below:

• The only game [that I hunt] is insects.

2. The second step is to determine whether the subject takes a singular or plural verb. A search on the Internet will show that, in the context of hunting, game appears sometimes with a singular verb and other times with a plural verb, depending on the writer. Now what?

3. Since some people use game with a singular verb and others prefer the plural, no matter what you do, it's going to sound wrong to some people. In tricky cases like this, my advice is to rewrite the sentence in a different way and avoid the question entirely. Here are some options for this example:

• I hunt insects, only. I don't hunt any other game.
• Insects are the only game that I hunt.
• I don't hunt game, except for insects. 

 

I hope this helps.