127. My favorite fruit is/are

In the occasional case where the subject is singular and the complement is plural, the verb agrees with the subject, not the complement.

So: My favorite meal is baked beans.

Not: My favorite meal are baked beans.

or My favorite food is noodles (noodles being almost always thought of in the plural).

But the example with fruit somewhat complicates things, since fruit has two plural forms: the more common fruit, as in The tree is pretty but its fruit are poisonous. And fruits, as in Mangoes and pineapples are tropical fruits. (The fact that fruit can also be uncountable, as in Fruit is good for you, need not concern us here, since in the context of my favorite fruit we are talking about one fruit among many, and hence making it countable).

Example 1 My favorite fruit are apples.

Example 2 My favorite fruit is apples.

Example 1 is easily explained, since fruit here is the plural form, and hence the example follows the pattern: My favorite animals are elephants.

Example 2 I can only explain as being singular fruit (analogous to My favorite animal…) but that the plural apples is the generic form – a slightly less pompous-sounding way of saying: My favorite fruit is the apple.

Nevertheless, when questioned about example 2, native speakers feel a bit uncomfortable, recognizing it as being somehow deviant, but the best of a bad job. "My favorite fruits are apples" might be an attempt to be hyper correct, with regard to concord, but it is only really likely in cases like My favorite fruits are apples and pears.

If example 2 is acceptable (and I think it is), it raises the question: why can’t we say My favorite animal is elephants? The reason is, I think, that it is not unusual to think of apples, generically, in quantities of more than one, but not elephants. In fact, the smaller you get, the more likely it is you would use a plural.

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Would you say, "My favourite fruit is apples." or "My favourite fruit is apple." or "My favourite fruit are apples." ? This question concerns what is called, technically, concord, or, more generally, agreement. That is, the agreement of subject and verb. So, to take your example (but avoiding fruit for the moment): My favourite animal is the elephant. Here we have concord between the (singular, countable) subject and the verb. We also have agreement between the singular subject and the complement (the elephant). We could equally well say: My favourite animals are elephants. Again concord rules. In the occasional case where the subject is singular and the complement is plural, the verb agrees with the subject, not the complement. So: My favourite meal is baked beans. Not *My favourite meal are baked beans. (The asterisk is the device traditionally used to show a grammatically unacceptable example). This, by the way, explains My favourite food is noodles, noodles being almost always thought of in the plural. However, there is another issue involved, and that is the way we use nouns to talk generically, that is, about classes of things. When we say My favourite animals are elephants, we are talking about elephants as a class, rather than any specific and identifiable elephants (in which case we would say My favourite animals are the elephants – e.g. the ones in the zoo). With countable nouns there are three options when talking generically: An elephant is a mammal. The elephant is a mammal. Elephants are mammals. With uncountable nouns, there is only one option – the “zero article”: Carbon is an element. So far so good. But your example with fruit somewhat complicates things, since fruit has two plural forms: the more common fruit, as in The tree is pretty but its fruit are poisonous. And fruits, as in Mangoes and pineapples are tropical fruits. (The fact that fruit can also be uncountable, as in Fruit is good for you, need not concern us here, since in the context of my favourite fruit we are talking about one fruit among many, and hence making it countable). Taking all this into account, we now need to explain why the following seem acceptable (and, indeed, are acceptable when you try them out on native speakers): 1. My favourite fruit are apples 2. My favourite fruit is apples. Less likely, but grammatical, are: 3. My favourite fruit is the apple. 4. My favourite fruits are apples.

“Some” can be used with both uncountable nouns and plural countable nouns, as in “some bread” and “some chairs”. The noun “fruit” can be either countable or uncountable, depending on context. It is usually uncountable when we speak of “fruit” in a non-specific way, for example in the sentence: “We must eat five servings of fruit and vegetables every day.” Even when many different kinds are involved, we can still use “fruit” as an uncountable noun, for example when offering a guest a plate with slices of papaya, pineapple and melon, we say: “Have some fruit.” When emphasising the different kinds of fruits, we usually use the countable noun, e.g. in the sentence: “I love Malaysian fruits, especially, guavas, mangosteens and papayas.” When speaking of only one type of fruit, we can use “fruit” either as an uncountable or a countable noun. Below are some examples from a nursery website in the United Kingdom of how both “fruits” and “fruit” are used to refer to one type of fruit on one tree: “Standard Lemon Tree. A vigorous plant to give a plentiful supply of juicy lemons. A lovely standard tree with fruits.” “Your very own mango tree. What could be more exotic than that? Red and yellow fruits from June.” “Avocado Tree. Dark-green, thick-skinned, pear-shaped fruit has buttery-textured flesh. Great for salads or home-grown Guacamole.”