What is wrong with these sentences.
1.A copy of Moby Dick and a magazine has disappeared from my room.
Not only the muffler but also the spark plugs need to be replaced.
I am wondering what is wrong in each of these sentences.
Two things disappeared from your room. Would you say "they has disappeared" or "they have disappeared"?
The construction, "not only . . . but also," takes a singular verb. Would you say "it needs to be replaced" or "it need to be replaced"?
In the first sentence, "A copy of Moby Dick and a magazine has disappeared from my room," there is a subject-verb agreement error. The verb "has" is singular, but the subject "A copy of Moby Dick and a magazine" is plural because it includes two items. To correct this error, you should use the plural form of the verb "have," like this: "A copy of Moby Dick and a magazine have disappeared from my room."
In the second sentence, "Not only the muffler but also the spark plugs need to be replaced," there is an error with parallelism. The structure "not only...but also" requires parallelism, meaning that the items being compared should have the same grammatical form. In this case, "the muffler" is a noun phrase, while "the spark plugs" is a noun with an article. To fix this, you should rewrite the sentence to ensure parallel structure, like this: "Not only does the muffler need to be replaced, but also the spark plugs."