<p>Sodas, a major commodity, is important to the economy.</p>
<p>It should be changed to:</p>
<p>Soda, a major commodity, is important to the economy.</p>
<p>The noun modifiers have to agree in number right? Or is the top example fine?</p>
<p>Like if you say:</p>
<p>Lions, the king of the savannah, are strong.</p>
<p>Looks/sounds funny to me.</p>
<p>Yeah, they ought to agree. Or at least I can’t think of any examples where they wouldn’t.</p>
<p>So the second “soda” one, and change the lions one to something like “Lions, the kings of the savannah, are strong,” or “The lion, king of the savannah, is strong.”</p>
<p>Sodas, a major commodity,are important to the economy.
Soda, a major commodity, is important to the economy.</p>
<p>You just ignore whatever’s between the comma’s.
So it’s just like:
Sodas are important to the economy.
Lions are strong.</p>
<p>So they don’t have to agree in number?</p>
<p>“Jack and Jill, the hill climber, are climbing.”</p>
<p>That sentence sounds awful.</p>
<p>Yes, they do have to agree in number.</p>
<p>Exactly. </p>
<p>So NoFX’s correction:</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Is only half right. It should be “Sodas, major commodities, are important to the economy.” Though in that particular instance, you’d probably want to go with the singular form all the way, just because it makes more sense.</p>
<p>Thank you all for all your inputs.</p>
<p>So is this wrong:</p>
<p>“The fifth period class, the noisy students, are being bad again.”</p>
<p>Yeah it’s wrong. Take away what is ever in between the commas:</p>
<p>WRONG:
The fifth period class are being bad again.</p>
<p>CORRECT:
The fifth period class is being bad again. </p>
<p>Furthermore:
The fifth period class, the noisy students, is being bad again."</p>
<p>It’s an awful sentence, though. It should be:
The fifth period class, which is made up of noisy students, is being bad again.</p>
<p>But, the SATs usually puts terrible sentences to confuse us.</p>
<p>Thanks. I get it now.</p>
<p>Yeah, I screwed up subj/noun agreement pretty thoroughly in this thread.</p>