Should I use "was" or "were" in the following sentence?

Question

The only movement in my body was/were my trembling legs and heaving lungs.>

Should it be was or were? Grammarly tells me is was but to my me were sounds more logical since legs and lungs are two items.

Peter · Accepted Answer · 2018-02-28 08:36:51Z

2

Your choices are

The only movement in my body was my trembling legs and (my) heaving lungs.

or

The only movements in my body were my trembling legs and (my) heaving lungs.

The second would sound more correct.

answered Feb 28, 2018 at 8:36

Peter

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I don't know about that. "Was there any movement in the body? - Yes, the legs were trembling and the lungs were heaving". The two physical phenomena constitute a single thing: movement. Besides which it is certainly not true that the only movements were those two things because in anyone's body all sorts of movements are taking place so that the use of the plural form for movements suggests a rather pedantic interest in all individual movements when that is not the point of the sentence.
– JeremyC
Feb 28, 2018 at 22:59

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