If I say :
I have a pair of shoes that is odd,
the meaning would be that there was something odd about the pair. Perhaps the shoes are bright green with pink spots.
But if I say :
I have a pair of shoes that are odd,
the meaning would be that these are odd shoes and are not a pair at all.
Just saying :
I have an odd pair of shoes ,
is ambiguous.
I need the one of the first two statements to be clear as to the meaning.
Is there a name for this division of meaning by choosing singular and plural ?
Are there any other examples of this peculiarity in the English language ?
In the first statement, the concept seems to me to associate 'pair' with 'is', but in the second the concept of association is between 'shoes' and 'are'.
Best Answer
To some extent, OP's example "puns" on the overlapping senses of a pair = one set OR two items and odd = not even (of integers, not a multiple of 2) OR unusual...
...but I don't think it's quite a "pun". It's just...
As a general principle, there shouldn't be any difference between OP's "attributive adjective" usage (an odd pair) and the "predicative adjective" version (a pair that are odd).
But because the attributive usage is more common in this exact context (for the "non-contrived" sense of an unusual pair of shows), I think the "wordplay" sense comes across better with the predicative format (we're naturally inclined to seek an unusual meaning when presented with even slightly unusual phrasing).
Here's a link to an NGram usage chart showing that pair of shoes is is 4-5 times more common than pair of shoes are, but I really don't think that "stylistic choice" makes any difference to OP's example of wordplay.