student asking question

"questions" is plural, but why does the verb "wins" have "s" at the end?

teacher

Native speaker’s answer

Rebecca

Very good observation! In this case, we need to pay attention to what the speaker is saying. The sentence is "Five correct questions wins the game". In this case, "five questions" is plural, yes, but the way it's used in the sentence is like a condition. If we expand the sentence to be more clear, it would say "Getting five correct questions wins the game." In which case "getting" is singular and "wins" is correct. Technically, the speaker is making a mistake, but the sentence is still correct by the context. This is a rare case, and you are not expected to speak like this yourself.

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