Which one is right?
Something that is not working
Something that are not working
Learn English – Is “something” plural or singular
singular-vs-pluralsubject-verb-agreement
Related Solutions
Whilst a dictionary search shows that the word is singular but plural in form, it is most commonly used (in my experience) with a verb in singular form.
Math(ematic)s is my least favourite subject.
Math(ematic)s is really hard.
This Ngram viewer helps:
EDIT: As @Araucaria points out, the "mathematics are" examples in the Ngram above are not really relevant. See his comment below.
There is/ are still a couple of months left until the end of semester
"Couple" is a number-transparent noun, meaning that the number of the whole noun phrase is determined not by the head of the NP, but by the number of the oblique (i.e. the complement of of).
Some number-transparent nouns can take singular and plural obliques (A lot of errors were made ~ "a lot of work was done").
But because "couple" means "two" or "a small number", it takes only plural obliques, so in your example, the correct verb is the plural "are".
Best Answer
Something is a pronoun, which is analogous to "a thing", that is an indefinite pronoun. "A/an" is the Old English for "one" and one implies singularity.
Thus,
I found a thing that wasn't working.
I found something that wasn't working.
are the same in meaning, but 'something' is the commonly used version.
To pluralise your sentence, I would say: "Some things that are not working."
"Some things" is not a pronoun, thus the words are kept separate.
A = one
Some = more than one/indefinite article for mass nouns (e.g. "I want some milk", as milk is uncountable).
A thing = singular
Some things = plural
But when "some" is attached to -body, -where, -thing, -time, or -one, (as in somebody, somewhere, something, sometime, someone) is always denotes a singular unspecified thing. There are no plurals for the pronouns somebody, something, and someone. Somewhere and sometime are adverbs, also denoting an unspecified place or time respectively.