- Nothing but books and magazines pleases/please her.
What is the subject "Nothing" or "Books and magazines"? What should we use here singular or plural?
- Nothing pleases/please her but books and magazines.
If change the position of "but", then would it change the grammar of sentence or it doesn't make any difference?
I have same confusion with "all but", "everything but", "anything but".
Best Answer
"But" in your sentence is used as a preposition that means "except (for)" and "but books and magazines" is a prepositional phrases which doesn't have any influence on the singularity of a subject. If you omit it, the sentence is changed to:
You can also rephrase the sentence to:
It is grammatical for to please to agree with the singular "nothing" as nothing is singular.
When "nothing but" is replaced by "only" as in:
to please has to agree with the plural subjects.
Now, whether to use "pleases" or "please" in your sentence could be controversial and I don't think it is an easy issue to determine. However, grammatically and formally, using the singular agreement is right. Using "please" could be more informal or colloquial. It will largely depend on where you place the emphasis.