[carrie721]

Originally Posted by Ghost_Tracker

Believe it or not, she's right, there, at least I think so. It's considered to be correct grammar to consider separate things as one singular entity, and in that case it's incorrect to use "are," and correct to use "is." Don't believe everything they tell you or told you in English class, they don't necessarily know all the sophisticated details of writing. Bottom line is, it SOUNDS better, at least in my opinion.

But - yeah, overall I agree with what you're saying. I think partly it comes from moving around so much during school, partly from not exactly having a "grammarian" looking over her shoulder all the time ( "That's just the POET that I AM" as she said! ) - and also, see my post above.

I think Buckingham would probably say something like, "WELL . . . she's not always . . . very PRECISE in her writing - - - but she's a HELL of an instinctive POET!"

actually, when a string of nouns is connected by "and," the entire thing is considered plural, hence "are" should be used.