Sing. subj., sing v.-- and therefore sing. obj. of prep. phr.?

[Amy West]

>there are cases where i suspect that a pattern of non-standard usage
>is indeed an aspect of some speakers' grammatical system, and some
>cases where i'm virtually sure of it.  but i don't think that
>canonical Agreement With Nearest is such a case.
>
>....
>
>i now think that it was a mistake for me to have commented on postings
>on this topic, and to other postings on differences in syntactic
>usage, and i will no longer do so.

Before you go silent . . . can I ask you for your thoughts on this?
If we regard the spoken and the written as two different forms of the
language, can't it be that  Agreement With Nearest is a grammatical
structure of the spoken language, but not of the written?

I have to admit that I've thought of Agreement With Nearest not
necessarily as an error (or as a rule), but as a tendency in the
spoken language.

---Amy West

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