Learn English – ‘A or B’ – singular or plural

pronouns

  1. An obvious communicator assumes that the listener is unaware of background information or related issues, and therefore provides them in the advertisement.

  2. Its goal will be to create a positive mood or feeling about the product. As a result, movie stars and celebrities often appear in advertisements to create these kinds of moods.

Can we use pronoun 'them' to indicate 'background information or related issues' as in sentence 1?

Can we use demonstrative adjective 'these' to indicate 'a positive mood or feeling about the product' as in sentence 2?

Since the subject 'A or B' takes a singular verb form in terms of subject verb agreement, I thought matching pronoun/demonstrative adjective of 'A or B' should be a singular one, too. However, obviously, I found many examples where 'A or B' takes a plural pronoun/demonstrative adjective.

In addition, in case of 'A or B + verb', when both A and B are plural nouns, do we still use a singular verb? How about when only one of them is a singular noun?

Best Answer

The rule is simple: when using "A or B", both the subsequent verb and adjective must match the plurality of B.

The listener is unaware of background information or related issues, but still comment on them.

Conversely,

The listener is unaware of related issues or background information, but still comment on it.

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