Discussion Groups / English Usage / January 2004

For maximal clarity, the last sentence above should be:

    I'm not sure what the subject is, or ['and' is also OK]
    what the proper use of the verb -- "is" or "are" -- should be.

The whole gerund clause, with a single gerund "accessing" and reduced
compound direct object "public web and ftp sites", is the subject.
As a clause, it's officially singular, and thus officially governs "is".

However, that official verdict flies in the face of the obvious intent
of the speaker (or writer), to the effect that the two types of sites
should be considered plural, as witness the plural "methods" following
is/are.  The fact that the speaker felt it necessary to distinguish
web from ftp and to use "methods" instead of "method" shows that they
wanted to distinguish ftp from web, though the way it was done makes
it unclear whether the "public" applies to both "web" and "ftp" or to
"web" only; the "sites" is clearly applicable to both.

The solution (as it so often is) is for the speaker to start over and decide
clearly whether

a) they want to rule out web and ftp as separate methods of remote access

   If so, then they shouldn't do such thorough conjunction reduction on
   the subject clause, and they might consider putting in all the presumed
   quantifiers and adverbs to make it clearer.  For example:

     Neither accessing public web sites nor accessing FTP sites
     are methods of remote access.
or
     Accessing public web sites and accessing FTP sites
     are not methods of remote access.

b) ... or whether they want to rule out a single method, which could be
     either web or ftp.

   If so, then the conjunction reduction is fine, though they should consider
   using "or" instead of "and", and "methods" has to become "a method".  
   For example:

     Accessing public web or FTP sites is not a method of remote access.

Abstract grammatical questions like which word is the subject and whether
the singular or plural is 'correct' are rarely of any use in considering how
best to communicate an idea.  Being sure of what you want to say before you
say it is generally the better idea.

-John Lawler  http://www.umich.edu/~jlawler  U Michigan Linguistics Dept
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   "You can only find truth with logic if you have already found
    truth without it."   -- G.K. Chesterton

"Accessing public web and ftp sites" is the subject, and "Accessing" is its
head with "public web and ftp sites" as the object of [the verb-like
character of the noun-like use of] "Accessing".

"Accessing public web and ftp sites is not remote access."

Adrian