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Both the bread and the butter are fresh.
Both the teacher and the students have come.
§ 64. With homogeneous subjects connected by the conjunctions not only... hut also, either... or, or,
neither... nor the verb-predicate agrees with the nearest noun-subject. (This is the so-called “proximity rule”.)
Either my sister or my parents are at home.
Either my parents or my sister is at home.
Neither you nor I am right.
Neither I nor you are right.
Not only my parents but also my brother knows about it.
Not only my brother but also my parents know about it.
Is Tom or Mary eager to meet you at the station?
§ 65. With homogeneous subjects connected by the conjunctions as well as, rather than, as much as, more
than the verb-predicate agrees with the first one.
My parents as well as my sister are teachers.
My sister as well as my parents is a teacher.
The manager as well as/rather than/more than/as much as the members of the board is responsible for the
present situation.
Notional agreement
§ 66. Notional agreement is to be found in the following cases:
1. In modern English agreement there may be a conflict between form and meaning. It refers first of all to
subjects expressed by nouns of multitude (see § 176, II), which may denote plurality being singular in form. In
such cases the principle of grammatical agreement is not observed and there appears the so-called notional
agreement, when the choice of the number is based on the fact whether the group of beings is considered as
one whole or, as a collection of individuals taken separately (as discrete ones).
Thus the nouns of multitude (band, board, crew, committee, crowd, company, clergy, cattle, family, gang,
group, guard, gentry, infantry, jury, militia, police, poultry, team) may have both a plural verb-predicate and a
singular one depending on what is meant - a single undivided body or a group of separate individuals.
A new government has been formed.
The government have asked me to go, so I am leaving now.
It was now nearly eleven 'clock and the congregation were arriving...
The congregation was small.
How are your family?
Our family has always been a very happy one.
The commanding officer does not know where his cavalry is and his cavalry are not completely sure of
their situation.
The crowd was enormous.
The crowd were silent.
The police is already informed.
I don’t know what the police are doing.
The cattle is in the mountains.
The cattle have stopped grazing. They know before you hear any sound that planes are approaching.
The jury decides whether the accused is guilty or not.
While the jury were out, some of the public went out for a breath of fresh air.
2. Subjects expressed by nouns denoting measure, weight, time, etc., have a singular verb-predicate when
the statement is made about the whole amount, not about the discrete units.