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In this sentence:

It’s not our lack of answers to these problems that causes us such pain.

My word processor tells me that "causes" should be in the plural form "cause", but I'm thinking the subject is "lack," and, therefore, singular. Am I wrong?

Community
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Brian Sachetta
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3 Answers3

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I agree, it's not the answers (plural) that "cause" has to agree with, it's "the lack of answers...". You have A LACK OF something, so the singular verb form is correct.

It's not the lack of funds that causes me such pain, it's the lack of fun.

I'd like to see what the grammarian behind that grammar checker has to say.

user8356
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There's some ambiguity in the sentence, and this seems to be causing the grammar checker to misparse it.

The intended parse is

It’s not our (lack of (answers to these problems)) that causes us such pain.

"lack of XXX" is a singular subject, so a singular verb is appropriate.

But I think it's parsing it as

It’s not our lack of (answers to these (problems that causes us such pain)).

In this case, "problems" is the subject of the last clause, so a plural verb would be appropriate.

It could be even a simpler mistake, it may just scan back to the closest noun, and assume that's the subject of the verb. Parsing English is hard, especially with nested clauses and prepositional phrases.

Barmar
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I think the confusion is that the word processor is suggesting using 'causes' instead of 'cause' - and you are assuming that it is because it is adding the 's' to make it plural.

However, 's' can be added to show that it is a persistent condition NOW, rather than in the future or past.

So:

  • He will run tomorrow.
  • He runs out the door now.
  • That horse runs a good race. (Not in the future or even particularly now - just a general 'this is the type of horse it is)

And:

  • It will cause us much pain tomorrow.
  • It causes us much pain now.
  • The knowledge of our mortality causes us much pain. (A general statement about humanity)

The example you gave makes perfect sense if the 's' suffix is used to talk about the 'now' (rather than future or past), or as a general statement about humanity.

The word processor is correct - unless you meant 'will cause us such pain' (future) or 'caused us much pain' (past).

-- Mac

Mac Harwood
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