[Grammar] who is/who are

[edbondny]

I'm a journalism teacher, and I'm having trouble with this sentence:

"She is one of those people who are never too busy to see a student."

Someone else says it should be:

"She is one of those people who is never too busy to see a student."

I believe the verb to be needs to agree with people, -- so, people who are -- since it's the closest noun. But instinctively some may want it to agree with she. I need to find a resource to confirm it either way.

Who can point me in the right direction?

[kiranlegend]

Originally Posted by edbondny

I'm a journalism teacher, and I'm having trouble with this sentence:

"She is one of those people who are never too busy to see a student."

Someone else says it should be:

"She is one of those people who is never too busy to see a student."

I believe the verb to be needs to agree with people, -- so, people who are -- since it's the closest noun. But instinctively some may want it to agree with she. I need to find a resource to confirm it either way.

Who can point me in the right direction?

What you believe is true?

Unfortunately, I can't post you a resource now. But I am sure in the cases of 'subject1.. one of subject2 verb..' Verb here should agree with subject 2..

I am not a teacher.

[Anglika]

Welcome to the forums.

Your reasoning is fine.

You could look at the British National Corpus and the American National Corpus for examples which will support you: [Davies/BYU] BYU-BNC: British National Corpus

Wikipedia may also offer some help: Collective noun - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[mykwyner]

People is part of the prepositional phrase, "...of those people" and is not the noun that has to agree with the verb is. The second is in the sentence has to agree with the noun one.

She is one who is...
She has three who are...