Gramer Girl here. I'm Minion Fogarty and you can think of me as your friendly guide to

the English language. We talk about writing, history, rules, and cool stuff. Today we're

going to talk about milk and cookies, Santa's back, and shoot-a-bakers.

First, since some of you might be leaving out milk and cookies for Santa soon, I thought

we could look at whether you'd say milk and cookies are delicious or milk and cookies

is delicious. In other words, we're discussing subjects that contain the word AND. You generally

think plural if you see an AND, but that's not always the case. Let's start with some subjects

that have definitely singular or definitely plural subjects. The subject in the clown is juggling,

is obviously singular. One clown is doing something. Two clowns and the ringmaster are juggling,

contains an AND, and since three people are involved, that subject is plural. Now for some

subjects that contain AND, but are singular. This might sound weird at first, but you probably say

such sentences every day. Take these two singular sentences. Peanut Butter and Jelly is available

in the cafeteria. And meat and potatoes was my grandfather's favorite meal. In these mouthwatering

sentences, the two items combine to form a single unit, one dish, and this is the crux of the matter.

As Marion Webster's Dictionary of English usage explains, quote,

when the noun's form a collective idea or a oneness of idea, the singular verb is appropriate,

unquote. Another example is spaghetti and meatballs. Spaghetti and meatballs goes well with garlic

bread. You might also find yourself referring to one person in two ways in a sentence, and if you

do so, you'll use a singular verb. Consider this example in which the writer is saying her

husband is also her best friend. My husband and best friend likes doing the dishes.

Although the subject, my husband and best friend contains an AND, the subject refers to just one

person. If you use a plural verb and say my husband and best friend like doing the dishes,

...