Learn English – “From one gift come many”: Why not “comes”

inversionsubject-verb-agreement

I want to ask about adding "s" to verbs. Sometimes I don't get an idea how to add this letter.

Example, are these sentences correct?

Tom buys a car.
Tom buys cars.
Tom and Ruth buy a car.
Tom and Ruth buy cars.

I think these above sentences are correct.

But today I saw on Apple site this:

From one gift come many.

I don't get why come is without "s"?
Because gift is singular. I know that Apple knows English better than I, but I don't get an idea why to use just come instead of comes?

Best Answer

What you have here is an ellipsis. The full sentence is:

From one gift come many [gifts].

Gifts is plural, and so is the verb. It's not the one gift that comes; it's many gifts that come from it.

Conversely, if it were "from one gift comes another [gift]", or "from one gift comes one more [gift]", or something like that, you'd use the singular.

Two general hints to help you recognize such things in the future:

  1. many is a sure sign that you're looking at, or should be looking for, something plural
  2. from is a sure sign that you're not looking at the nominative case, and so you're likely not looking at the subject of a clause (it's "he does", not "from him does", nor "from him do")
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