Talk to most people about grammar and you’re likely to hear a lot about little issues that are, essentially, language trivia — matters like when to use “whom,” how to use “between” and ...

Its subject is the 19-word noun phrase indicated in italics, ... "was," and its complement is the adjective phrase, ... The second sentence, in turn, has this normal form: ...

On several occasions these past four years, I have pointed out that the pronoun “they” rather than “them” is the correct form of the subject complement in this inverted sentence: “The winners of the ...