Has/have and was/were

Question

I have homework and its asking me to deal with subject and verb agreements.

The two questions are:

1. My mom and dad have/has a new dish washer
2. All of the men and women in the college was/were participating in the frosh event.

My guess is they should be using plural verbs because when 2 nouns are joined by "and" they should use a plural verb. I'm not sure which is the plural version of have/has and were/was.

Answer 1

You are quite right: these both require plural verbs. Any dictionary should give you the conjugations of have and be

PRESENT              BE                  HAVE
1st person singular  I am                I have
2nd person singular  you are             you have
3rd person singular  he/she/it is        he/she/it has

1st person singular  we are              we have
2nd person singular  you are             you have
3rd person singular  they are            they have

PAST                 BE                  HAVE
1st person singular  I was               I had
2nd person singular  you were            you had
3rd person singular  he/she/it was       he/she/it had

1st person singular  we were             we had
2nd person singular  you were            you had
3rd person singular  they were           they had

Note:

• BE is the only verb which has three different forms in the present and two different forms in the past.
• The odal verbs can, may, shall and will have only one form in the present and one form in the past. The modal verb must has only one form.

• All other verbs have

  • two forms in the present: a plain form for all persons and numbers except 3rd person singular, which has a form ending in -s
  • one form in the past