Question

Choose the sentence in which usual order of words is altered:
a) The people were excited when Superman made his first public appearance.
b) The chief told him to keep an eye on the man in the blue pants.
c) Excited the people were when Superman made his first public appearance.
d) Told him to keep an eye the chief on the man in the pants blue.

Answer 1

Hint: Subject verb agreement simply means that the subject and the verb should agree in number. That implies both must be singular or both must be plural.

Complete answer:
Agreement happens when a word changes form depending on the other words it refers to It is an example of inflexion, which usually involves "agreement" between different terms or portions of the sentence, the meaning of some categories of grammar (such as gender or person).

Let us go through the options given in which usual order of words is altered:

a) The people were excited when Superman made his first public appearance: This option is incorrect because the sentence is in normal word order. To add emphasis, the auxiliary verb usually comes before the subject, resulting in the inversion.

b) The chief told him to keep an eye on the man in the blue pants: This is also incorrect because the sentence is in a normal word order that is verb + subject + object.

c) Excited the people were when Superman made his first public appearance: Here, the main verb ‘excited’ comes before the subject ‘the people’, keeping the rest of the sentence, in the normal word order, intact. Hence this sentence shows inversion. So, this is the correct answer.

d) Told him to keep an eye the chief on the man in the pants blue: Here, the words are not altered in this way: verb + subject + object but instead this way: verb + subject + phrase (that changes the object). The words are jumbled here, so they are unclear.

Note: An efficient way to make language more emphatic is by inverting the usual word order of a sentence while using English that is verb + subject + object.