Singular or plural

[Dr Mildr]

While reading a book by naturalist and Guardian columnist, Stephen Moss (what an appropriate name!) I was struck by the use of is in the following:
...why, in essence, watching and enjoying birds is good for us.

I had a fleeting thought that these are two activities and thus is should be are, but it doesn't sound right.
I tried playing around with eating and drinking:
Eating and drinking is good for us, or
Eating and drinking are good for us?

Is my confusion because there is a missing, but implied, noun:
Eating and drinking are [behaviours that are] good for us
or have I just lost the plot? If I'm confused, how would it be explained to a non-native speaker?

[Pete]

May 25, 2008 10:35:54 GMT Dr Mildr said:

While reading a book by naturalist and Guardian columnist, Stephen Moss (what an appropriate name!) I was struck by the use of is in the following:
...why, in essence, watching and enjoying birds is good for us.

I had a fleeting thought that these are two activities and thus is should be are, but it doesn't sound right.
I tried playing around with eating and drinking:
Eating and drinking is good for us, or
Eating and drinking are good for us?

Is my confusion because there is a missing, but implied, noun:
Eating and drinking are [behaviours that are] good for us
or have I just lost the plot? If I'm confused, how would it be explained to a non-native speaker?

I think that "Eating and drinking are good for us" at least feels right. But I agree that "watching and enjoying birds are good for us" feels wrong.

Also, I don't think there are any missing words in the first phrase, as I think that "eating" and "drinking" both stand alone as nouns (I am sure there is a technical term for this but I don't know it).

Is the difference that the first phrase has 2 'activity' nouns applying to a single 'object' noun, while the first phrase doesn't have an 'object' noun in the same way. How does "Eating and drinking foodstuffs are good for us" compare to "Eating and drinking foodstuffs is good for us"?

Difficult, isn't it?

[Barry]

I think that the difference lies in the way we think of each of the activities.

Watching and enjoying birds: the enjoying stems from the watching; in our minds, we think of one activity, one snapshot of life - being sat in a hide (or wherever), and getting enjoyment from watching birds. That is, the 'watching birds' is actually qualifying what type of enjoyment we're getting, even though it's a verb phrase.

Eating and drinking: while these activities often happen at the same time, we nonetheless see them as separate things, and one doesn't stem from the other. The enjoyment gained from eating is a different sensation to the enjoyment gained from drinking. It's why we often say - 'it was a good meal, and the wine was excellent too'. The two activities, although concurrent, are not dependent or qualifying.

[Paul Doherty]

There's a grammatical difference, too. "Watching and enjoying birds" is a compound subject -- "Watching" cannot stand alone in the sentence (I like enjoying birds, and I like watching -- sounds weird!) . So it's clearly one thing.

But "Eating and drinking" could be two subjects (I like eating, and I like drinking) so could be plural.

It's the "law and order" thing, isn't it? Singular if it's one concern, plural if it's two.

[Dr Mildr]

May 25, 2008 12:48:52 GMT Barry said:

one snapshot of life - being sat in a hide (or wherever)

That would be being sat sitting in a hide, would it?

[Paul Doherty]

Good call, Dr Mildr! And using the passive being only half excuses it!