grammar - Is "et al." used as a singular or plural subject?


When referring to multiple authors by using the name of the first author and "et al.", is it correct to grammatically treat this as one person or multiple persons?



Gamma et al. are saying in their text...



vs.



Gamma et al. is saying in his text...




Answer



The Latin translates into Gamma and others, so the verb should be plural if the subject is construed as the authors. However, if the subject is construed to be the article, a singular entity written by three or more authors, e.g., the Gamma et al. article, then the sentence can be written as Gamma et al. says that... -- this is, however, rare, in my experience, and, like walkmanyi, I would avoid it if possible.


When I edit biomed articles, I always treat this structure as a plural subject and ensure plural subject-verb concord: Gamma et al. (2009) say that....


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