Many years ago, back when I used to answer my land-line telephone, I found myself in a conundrum. I realized that, when a caller asked, “May I speak to June, please?” I would answer “This is she.” But ...

A recent headline from the Los Angeles Times, “Teens plotting attacks tend to tip their hand,” highlights a particularly difficult grammar problem. Do plural teens really share a singular hand? No.

Like the subject, the object is usually a noun (‘the piano’) or a noun phrase, (‘the big, black piano’). Verbs that take objects describe some kind of action rather than a state of being.