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jogging is one of the activities ___________________ him lose weight.

Which one should I use - "which helps" or "which help." - and why?

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As "activities" is plural it needs "which help", which is the plural form. The sentence would always be taken as meaning that there are several activities which help him lose weight, and jogging is one of them. To say that jogging is one of several activities, and it is the one which helps him lose weight you could use "jogging, which helps him lose weight, is one of the activities". Alternatively you could split the sentence to "jogging is one of the activities. It helps him lose weight".

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  • I see. So the subject in this sentence is not "jogging" but "activities", right?
    – Muuu Mu
    Commented Jul 3, 2023 at 9:40
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    @MuuuMu "jogging" is the subject of the sentence, but the verb is "is", not "helps". "which helps ..." is a prepositional phrase that qualifies "activities".
    – Barmar
    Commented Jul 3, 2023 at 16:09
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Singular and plural are both correct. It depends of the context:

If the activities refer to chess, reading and jogging, then one single activity (jogging) is the subject, giving which helps.

If activities were jogging, basket-ball and swimming, the 3 sports are the subject, what gives which help.

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  • If you want to distinguish which of the activities helps, you would say "the activity", not "one of the".
    – Barmar
    Commented Jul 3, 2023 at 16:11
  • If you're using "which helps", I'm pretty sure you'd need to set it off with a comma or em-dash or something, cause it sounds like an afterthought to the sentence to me, and it's referring back to the subject instead of creating a subordinate clause. For example I'll add some context: "He has a variety of activities planned for today, both active and inactive. Jogging is one of the activities — which helps him lose weight. On the other hand, reading and chess don't help him in that respect."
    – wjandrea
    Commented Jul 3, 2023 at 19:21

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