Example 3:
Let’s do this as an SAT-style question.
Each of the streets were painted green.
Of the following, which best replaces the underlined portion?
A) NO CHANGE
B) were painting green.
C) was painted green.
D) was painting green.Isolate: subject: each (singular)
verb: were (plural)
Combine: “Each were painted green.”
This one is a little trickier. You have to realize that the subject of the sentence
is Each and not of the streets. (Streets is an object of the preposition of.) Anytime
you see “of the ,” the word that goes in the blank is an object, not a
subject. Although streets is plural, the subject of the sentence, Each, is singular.
If you replace the “of the ” part of the sentence with the word one,