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I saw an answer on this site. The link is: https://ell.stackexchange.com/a/250152/116295

He quoted a sentence that is "here's how Refills work" but I think it should be are because Refills is plural here.

I want to know if what is correct to say and why:

Here is how Refills work.

Or,

Here are how Refills work.

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Here's how refills work.

"Refills" is plural.  When it is a subject, the verb needs to agree with a third-person plural. 

It is a subject in this sentence, and the relevant verb does agree.  That verb is "work".  The correct pairings are  refills/work  and  a refill/works. 

That's the subject/verb pairing of one of the two clauses in this sentence.  There is another. 

The entire clause "how refills work" is the subject of the matrix clause.  That subordinate clause as a whole is a singular third-person subject.  Consider these:

Here is the method.
Here are some methods.

The clause "how refills work" represents one method, or one explanation, or some other singular concept.  Even though that clause contains a plural subject/verb agreement, the grammatical number of the subject of the subordinate clause does not affect the number for the verb of the matrix clause. 

How refills work is one thing, no matter how many refills there are.

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It is true that in the construction here is / here are the verb must agree in number with the subject that follows, if the subject is a noun (or a noun phrase):

Here's your cola. (singular subject "cola", singular verb "is")

Here are your papers. (plural subject "papers", plural verb "are")

But in your sentence, "here's how Refills work", the subject that follows here's is a clause which is always treated as singular:

How they speak is their own business.

Irrespective of whether the subject of the clause is singular or plural, the whole clause is always singular. That's why how Refills work is singular and the singular is should be used. The sentence "here's how Refills work" is correct.

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EDIT: I read and submitted this too fast yesterday, as pointed out by comments. I stand by what I said here as being correct if the actual ending part were a plural noun phrase, but it doesn't answer the question being asked. Look to the accepted answer above to answer this question.

You're right that "here are how" is correct, for the reason you give. This article goes into more detail.

In written language, you should normally write it this way. However, I don't think most people would say it that way. I would definitely say "here's how" because it's shorter, and I don't think I'm the only one. So, if you're trying to reproduce dialog, you can use "here's"; otherwise, use "here are".

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    You misunderstood the article you quote. In it, it goes about the fact that in here is / here are the verb must agree in number with the subject that follows, all the subjects in the examples in the article being nouns. In the OP's sentence, the subject that follows here's is a clause which is always treated as singular: "How they speak is their own business." Irrespective of whether the subject of the clause is singular or plural, the whole clause is always singular.
    – Yellow Sky
    Commented Jun 10, 2020 at 13:31
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    Downvoted because of what @YellowSky said
    – Kevin
    Commented Jun 10, 2020 at 13:38
  • You're right, I read it too quickly. My bad.
    – fool4jesus
    Commented Jun 11, 2020 at 13:42

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