grammatical number - Singular or plural noun in a sentence after using both in a related conjunction?


Occasionally when I am writing a sentence, I end up in a situation where I do not know whether to use the singular or plural form of a noun because I used both just prior to it in a conjunction.


For example:



The worst, and one of the most common, problems is […]


One of the most common, and generally worst, problem is […]



Should problem be singular or plural in those sentences? Is there a rule for situations like this? (It certainly doesn’t help that for one of the most common problems is has is instead of are right next to a plural noun.)



Update

Here is another example which (along with its non-contraction versions) does not fit the currently accepted answer.



JavaScript / Bookmarklets don’t work […]


Bookmarklets / JavaScript doesn’t work […]



In fact, the sentence before the above example with the parenthesized segment is itself confusing as to whether the next word should be does or do.




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