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Your Pain Is Our Pleasure

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Proofreading Service - Pain in the English
Proofreading Service - Pain in the English

Your Pain Is Our Pleasure

24-Hour Proofreading Service—We proofread your Google Docs or Microsoft Word files. We hate grammatical errors with a passion. Learn More

It is you who are/is ...

I was talking with someone via Facebook. I thought she was wrong, and she wrote back to me: “No, Donna, it is you who are wrong”. Had she left out the word “who” then I believe “are” would be correct, but since she included the word “who” then it changes to singular “you” which would require the word “is”. I believe it shoud read “No, Donna, it is you who is wrong”. Please help me on this grammatical issue.

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Donna, it's you who are wrong. The word "who" is not inherently third-person singular; it takes its person and number from the noun it's referring to. It can be singular or plural, and first person, third person, or (as in your case) second person.

jack2 Jul-25-2010

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Uh.. I think you're confusing yourself, Donna.

Does Donna change in numbers? You has always been singular. In English, there is no distinction in the word or spelling of 'you', to determine whether it's singular or plural. In this case, we already know who 'you' is referring to: Donna. So, whether it's having the 'who' or not, it's always singular. And, saying 'you are' doesn't make you more of yourself! That is just the rule for whenever you use 'you'.

The correct way is 'you who is wrong'. Unless it's like, 'You, who is the ruler of all the people of Nalatan, are wrong'. But, just having 'who', turns it into a pronoun for the concept of 'you' (it's called relative pronoun), which is referring to Donna. Therefore, it is 'is'.

A good way to remember this is replacing is or are with something else. Like, 'you who was wrong'. Being a native speaker, I can immediately tell by changing it into past tense that 'who was wrong' sounds right. 'you who were wrong' would definitely change the meaning, rather, to plural, not singular.

Also, if you're a native speaker, you would immediately imagine like some medieval story with a silly line 'It is I, the great...' or 'it is you who are'.. all of a sudden, you realise that in those days people referred to a single person in a plural form when you give them more respect. Even adversaries would you use 'you'-plural, because - well, yeah, exactly, they're their adversaries; they would most likely be as great of a success as that person is - and, because of the whole chivalrous thing. And so, if someone says 'you who are..' just take it as a compliment.

dbfreak Nov-17-2010

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An old but informative article on "clefts" (the linguistic term for this kind of sentence) is AKMAJIAN, ADRIAN. 1970. On deriving cleft sentences from pseudo-cleft sentences. Linguistic Inquiry 1.149-168.

Akmajian actually gives data from three dialects that he identifies, which differ in whether the focus must be accusative, and in whether the verb in the cleft clause need agree only in number, or in both number and person. That is, some speakers say, "It is I who do it"; others say, "It is I who does it"; and still others say, "It is me who does it." If I recall correctly, if the speakers use the accusative form, then the verb following "who" is always third-person singular. That is, no one says, *"It is me who do it."

nealwhitman Aug-04-2010

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When you knock at the door do you say "it's me" or "it is I" ?

Do you say the yolk of an egg IS white or the yolk of an egg ARE white?

bentoboxuk Jul-30-2010

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The pronoun "you" always takes a plural verb, even when the object is singular, as in your example.

Leave out the "who" and you'd have either "you are wrong" or "you is wrong". "Who," in your example, modifies "you." It's neither the subject ("you" is the subject--and there's an example of an exception to the rule I stated initially, but that's because what I'm really saying is "The word {fill in the blank} is the subject") nor the object of the verb "to be."

Hope this helps!

ucla74 Jul-24-2010

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You say it should be "It's you who is wrong" but I disagree: I would say "It is you who are wrong", and this is why:

You say the word "who" refers to the subject "you", but inherits only the number (singular or plural) of the subject. "You" here is the antecedent, which is then represented by "who". So "is" depends on "who" = "you", so 'you ... who ... are ...'.

You say that 'in this sense you can consider the phrase "who is wrong" as a (complex?) clause'. It is a clause, yes (not a phrase, which would not include a verb; this clause does) and there is nothing complex about it; it is a relative clause in which the relative pronoun 'who' relates/refers (from the Latin 'refero, referre, retuli, relatum' = to carry back) to its antecedent ("lying before") 'you'.

So therefore: I ... who ... am, you ... who ... are, he/she ... who ...is, we ... who ... are, and so on.

So when you say ' you wouldn't say "It's I who am wrong." ', I say I would, for it is correct. This time it is you who are wrong, I am afraid.

Brus Jul-14-2012

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Very common mistake. I hear many people who speak English as a first language make it all the time.

patmallon Aug-04-2010

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It should be "It's you who is wrong". The word "who" refers to the subject "you", but inherits only the number (singular or plural) of the subject. Then "is" depends on "who". In this sense you can consider the phrase "who is wrong" as a (complex?) clause.

For instance, you wouldn't say "It's I who am wrong."

But curiously enough, with this construction you can actually distinguish between a singular "you" and a plural "you". How nifty! :)

EngLove Jul-13-2012

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It is, you are, who is, who are. "It is" singular because 'is' relates to the subject "it". It is you who are...: "you who are" is correct because 'are' relates to the subject "who" which is the subject of the relative clause "who are...", which in turn relates to its antecedent "you", so as the relative pronoun "who" derives its number from the antecedent, 'who are' replaces or represents "you are", just "It is I who am correct...".

"It is I" when answering a knock on the door or a call from a window is pedantic and would give the speaker's identity away immediately! The excuse for saying "It is me" or "It's me" is provided by the French, who look after their language with much more care than we do ours. "C'est moi", rather than "C'est je." The grammatical explanation is that
"moi" is used here disjunctively, as "ce" is the subject, so "je" is the complement rather than the subject. "Me" and "us" are the English disjunctive versions: "it's me", it's us". "It" is the impersonal subject, "me" and "us" the complements.

The yolk of eggs is not white. Nor are the yolks of eggs. Singular subject "is", plural subject "are", yolks yellow.

Brus Oct-10-2011

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@Brus - It's a bit late in the day, but I'm with donnahansen and EngLove on this one. If the "you" being addressed is one person, "who" refers to a singular person and takes "is"; if the "you" refers to more than one person, them it takes "are". I absolutely agree with your analogy with "It's me who ...", but with the opposite conclusion. As you yourself said earlier, "It's me who am (eg responsible for...)", doesn't sound right. And that's because nobody'd say it. "It's me who is (responsible for ...)" is the grammatically natural statement. Checking through Google books with Ngram shows absolutely no examples of "It is me who am" or "it's me who am", while finding a reasonable number of examples for the "is" variety. But I'm rather surprised you don't hear that "It's me who am ..." is ungrammatical, as you hinted at earlier.

http://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=It+is+me+who+am%2CIt+is+me+who+is%2Cit%27s+me+who+am%2Cit%27s+me+who+is&year_start=1800&year_end=2000&corpus=15&smoothing=3&share=

In Practical English Usage, Michael Swan gives two possibilities for the "me" type:

It is I who am responsible (formal)
It is me that's responsible (informal) (that and who are interchangeable - WW)

And recommends a possible middle way - I'm the person who is responsible.

Warsaw Will Dec-10-2012

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Oh no! Horrors! Did I write "It is me who ..." ? Too many beers. It is of course "It is I who am ..."

It (Subject) is (verb) I (complement, same case as subject, so "I" unless disjunctive "me" as in French "C'est moi"). "Who" introduces relative clause, antecedent "I" refers to 'me' so 'who' is singular, 'who' is the subject of its clause, and singular, and takes its number and gender from its antecedent, so is singular; so "who is .." can be the next bit. "It is I who is wrong." Something indeed sounds wrong.

'I'm the person who is responsible' is a cop-out.

I still like "It is I who am wrong." The subordinate clause verb then takes its person and number from the relative pronoun. I am uncertain if it is correct, however, as until this occasion I have never had occasion to use the expression.

Brus Dec-10-2012

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"C'est moi", rather than "C'est je." The grammatical explanation is that
"moi" is used here disjunctively, as "ce" is the subject, so "je" is the complement rather than the subject. "Me" and "us" are the English disjunctive versions: "it's me", it's us". "It" is the impersonal subject, "me" and "us" the complements.
A bit more on this: the disjunctive is where there is no further verb attached to "moi" or "me", etc. When there is another clause: eg "It is me who is wrong"/"It is I who am wrong"/ "It is me who am wrong" "It is me who is" - "is" here governed by "who" which in turn may refer to either "It" or "I/me". In French where the persons of verb, and their tenses, are much more clear: "It is we who were wrong" would certainly be "C'est nous qui nous sommes trompes", and "nous" here is disjunctive, as proved by "moi" if it were "c'est moi qui me suis trompe". Now that is an argument for saying that "It's me who am...". But it doesn't sound right, does it?

Brus Oct-10-2011

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Judging by its use in books, the plural is the norm; this is from Thackeray, ' "It is you who are cruel," cried Pen'.

I think in informal English, however, we might well say 'It's you who's wrong'; 'are' sounds a bit stilted somehow.

My explanation would be is that this is a cleft sentence where 'It' is an introductory device, the subject of 'is', and 'who is wrong' is a specific type of restrictive relative clause modifying 'you'. The verb should therefore agree with the subject of the realtive clause, 'you', not 'it'.

Compare with a couple of more obvious plurals:
"It's the Johnsons who have just been to Cypress, not the Smiths." (Not 'has')
"It's oysters that make me feel ill, not mussels." (Not 'makes')

Warsaw Will Mar-19-2015

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In “it is you,” what does “it” refer to? That is the key question here. A more direct way of constructing this sentence is: “Who is wrong is you.” In this case, you would not write “Who are wrong is you.” Why? Because it’s saying “The answer is you.” The answer is singular.

To reveal what is implied but not said, we can write the same sentence like this: “To the question of who is wrong, the answer is you.” Or, “The answer to the question of who is wrong is you.”

In other words, “is” should match “the answer” not “you.” If “It” were referring to “you,” the sentence would be a tautology: “You are you.” You would not write “The answer are you.” So, I would argue that “is” is the correct answer.

Dyske Feb-25-2019

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@Brus - I know it's perfectly correct, but "It is I who am wrong" is too formal for me and personally I prefer "It's me who's wrong".

If Swan is right (and he is THE authority in my field), then in the original question both are correct (as subject and object form of "you" are the same); it's simply a matter of formality. But I still prefer "is" when addressing one person.

Warsaw Will Dec-11-2012

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still confused about this one... doesn't the word "who" relate to the word "it" ? for me to use a singular verb?

Ignorant me Mar-15-2015

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Although 'Is it you who are' is the gramatically 'correct' answer, I'm increasingly convinced I'd normally say 'Is it you who's ...' or use a workaround.

A similar problem with a relative clause came up in class the other day in an exercise on tenses from a book called Grammarway Advanced. There was a question where the students had to fill the gap with a suitable verb in the appropriate tense, includinng the word 'ever':

"This is one of the best books that ................ on the subject"

The students were obviously meant to pick the present perfect passive of 'write'. And my first reaction was:

"This is one of the best books that has ever been written on the subject". But then I started thinking: the relative clause refers to 'books', not one, just as the relative clause above refers to 'you', not 'it'. So maybe it should be 'have', not 'has'. It turns out this one has been bothering people for centuries. Although Fowler thought 'has' here a blunder, it's been used by many good writers. It seems that 'one' is just too strong a draw for most of us; it's that oldidea of notional agreement taking over from formal agreement.

I think it's the same with 'Is it you who are'. Formal agreement favours 'are', notional agreement favours 'is'. And in spoken English, at least, notional is often more natural and idiomatic than formal or 'correct'.

Warsaw Will Mar-26-2015

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Clearly, it should be "Who are 20 years old," since they are twins, therefore, plural.

Gary44 Jun-07-2019

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I cannot believe that the French would have any doubt about which is correct. They would say: "C'est toi qui as [singular] tort", not: "C'est toi qui avez [plural] tort." Are the French more grammatical than we (us?)".

JCL Sharp May-20-2020

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Does 'who' refer to "it" or to "you"? It is, you are. You are so right! Actually, I like 'It is you who are wrong.'

Are we being awfully pedantic here?

Brus Nov-07-2011

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a) "you're" is short for "you are" - "I hope you are well " sounds ok so the answere is "you're".
"Your" sounds the same but indicates possession (compare we - our / you - your) ; "I hope your health is ok" is correct.

b) Who is seeking? Answer: "our client"; singular or plural? = singular; therefore "is" is correct. Thus either: "Our client is seeking" or "Our clients are seeking".

c) "Our client seeks" is fine, just perhaps a little more formal in this context.

jayles the unwoven Feb-05-2016

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Hi Donna! I found a worksheet about simple present tense. The paragraph: ¨He lives in Chicago with his parents and his twin siblings- Denise and Mike, Who is 20 years old.¨ The paragraph is about the twin siblings.. it is Who is or Who are..? I am confused. Please help me!

Celia75 Mar-03-2019

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Dyske, you say it should be "is" because it matches "the answer". OK, but what if the number changes, mid-sentence: "It is they who are the problem." Doesn't that sound more natural than "It is they who is the problem"? "They" is plural; "the problem" is singular. Plural wins in this case.

ummagummibear Sep-26-2021

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