Verb "to be" agreement


Which one is correct:


"A popular approach is the so-called immersed interface methods."


"A popular approach are the so-called immersed interface methods."


In Portuguese, the second one would be correct, because the verb "to be" sometimes agrees with the object instead of the subject. I was wondering if in English such exception also exists, of if the verb "to be" always agrees with the subject no matter what.



Answer



It depends on the meaning of "immersed interface methods." If it is to be considered a a whole, a single thing, then singular is correct, if it represents many different methods consider individually, then the subject should be plural.


Let me give you an example that might help clarify. I live in the USA. I might say:


a popular country is the United States.

"States" is technically plural, so this doesn't seem to fit, but "United States" is considered idiomatically a single entity.


To give another example:


On the football squad, a popular topic of conversation is girls.

Again "girls" is plural, but it is considered just one thing for the subject of this sentence.


So for you, you have two options:


A popular approach is the so-called "immersed interface methods."

To emphasize the unified nature of the methods, I have quoted it, which helps a lot in understanding. The qualifier "so-called" adds to this a lot, indicating that it is called that as a common idiomatic construction. Or alternatively:


Popular approaches are the the so-called immersed interface methods.

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