Oh, fine, I'm in the Twilight Zone because my view is radical and crazy: good writers can make mistakes, not just typos. Why is that possible? Because there are endless possible ways to combine words, and any one combination can give rise to a unique set of circumstances. What is easily a grammatical error in one combination of words, may not be so obvious in another. But that doesn't mean it's not an error.
---
If you're educated and distinguished -- man, you're a perfect Grammar God! You know it all; nobody can tell you any different.
And don't forget that if you're distinguished, if something sounds good to you it IS good, it IS correct. Hoo, boy! You rule, man -- you make our future!

Andrew:

Exactly.

David provided two fine examples: "to cut and run" and "to have and hold". Is it worth noting that these are idioms, which helps us instantly identify them as single actions?

"to cut and run" = "to retreat" = singular

"to have and to hold" = "to love" = singular

"To sigh my anguish" and "to cry my ache" = what singular action?

I suppose "to despair" might work but that requires thought; by the time we've put that together "consumes" flies by. Also, David's examples don't have objects. Yours has two different ones: "my anguish" and "my ache". One single action involving two distinct verbs acting on two separate objects? Without relying on recognized figurative language? I don't think so.

FWIW, I wonder if you would have more agreement if you were to cut away the extraneous bits and present the question simply as:

"To sigh my anguish and to cry my ache" = one or two actions?

-o-

Easy, Petra. I didn't say anything like what you are suggesting - and nor, I think, did Bob. I said that my vote would normally go with the distinguished writer, and I offered a counter-illustration to show where it might not.

Petra, the distinction is between a slip of the pen, or keyboard, which the writer didn't notice, and a difference of opinion which is reflected upon and discussed. In the latter case, my vote would normally go with the distinguished writer rather than the copy-editor.

That's what you wrote, Adam. And it seemed to imply that good writers can make typos OR pen something that can be an issue of disagreement but not an outright error. Bob had earlier implied -- n fact pretty much said outright -- that educated and proven writers don't make mistakes. You seemed to be supporting what he said. My point is that even good writers can make grammatical mistakes; there are things they don't know, or maybe just can't see within the context of what they wrote. They can stubbornly say that something is not an error, when in fact it is.
-------
Bob (of all people! I'd normally say it's not like him) introduced the elitist note in this discussion. I found it both repellent and irrelevant.

I'm not able to type the whole discussion, but for anyone who has access to it, I recommend The New Fowler's Modern English Usage, 3d. ed., edited by R.W Burchfield. The discussion at "agreement (in grammar)" under point 3, nouns joined by "and," presents several examples of cases in which, as it says, "judgments will differ."

Andrew,
On first reading I thought the singular was correct because the two actions, put in some kind of metaphysical, conceptual space by the use of the infinitive, made them seem like one action figuratively presented in two images. However, going back to the translation thread, I felt that the next phrase, "whenever I find myself alone," made the use of the infinitive seem unidiomatic. The poet is describing habitual actions, not making an abstract statement about an emotional state. Thus "crying" and "sighing" seem more appropriate than "to sigh" and "to cry." Because the actions are then more concrete, they ask to be treated separately. You can still assert that they are one action and use the singular, but half the readers are going to trip over it. Only a quarter will trip over the plural--not that you want to decide this by counting noses. It's one of those situations where you can't win, but you can't lose either. Best wishes, Bill

I'm not being elitist at all to suggest that a distinguished writer and person of letters, when asked to publish a piece of writing, should be the one who ultimately decides whether he is satisfied with how the piece is written, and that anyone who gets a copy-editing job is somehow, ex officio, more qualified to make such decisions than the writer himself.

I think the problem is that when a copy editor and a writer disagree, there is no Supreme Court of Usage to appeal to, and so we have no way of knowing who is right, and no way of resolving the issue other than to have one of them defer to the other. To my lights, especially when we are not dealing with a beginning writer but with an accomplished person of letters and a background that assures us that he is every bit as careful and educated about usage as the copy editor, the writer should have the final say. This is especially so when it comes down to a judgment of what is "idiomatic," as opposed to what is "incorrect." Call me elitist if you will, but I'd rather take my chances with Saul Bellow's understanding of usage than that of a copy editor.

Again, there is no Supreme Court, so we cannot know, in the abstract, who is correct and who is mistaken. If you are considering a hypothetical in which a writer and a copy editor disagree, and, in your hypothetical, the copy editor is correct, I would ask you how you know, even in your hypothetical, that this is the case? If we start with the assumption that the copy editor is correct, then of course it doesn't make sense to defer to the writer, but in such stand-offs there is no one who can tell us, as we watch from the sidelines, which of the two is correct, and so my preference would be to respect the writer's wishes after he has been fully apprised of the copy editor's view. It's his byline, let him bear the ultimate responsibility.

Thanks for that thought, Bill -- good idea to bring in the context of the sentence. When I have a bit of time, which won't be until Thursday, I'll keep in mind what you say here.

As well as all the other insights in the thead -- for which, thanks everyone.

Sorry, Bob, but you're quite wrong to think that authors who publish at a big publishing house or in a prestigious magazine or journal have the final say. Changes are made by both the editor and the copy editor. In most cases the author will see galleys, i.e., what the work will look like when published. Sometimes the author is told that he/she can raise points that he/she objects to, but that is far from always the case. Perhaps it's regrettable, but at the same time it's understandable. After all, the publishers & editors don't have the time and desire to listen to authors complaining or even whining about how the changes made destroyed the meaning, ruined the rhythm, or just don't sound good. The battles would go on and on, and nothing would get published. And if they opted to go along with whatever an author said it would reflect not only on the author, but also on the editors and ultimately the magazine or the publishing house.
By the way, as I think I said elsewhere, even translators get edited at major houses. After you translate a foreign text, no matter how careful a job you do, the editors at the publishing house will go over your text and change things, whether you like it or not.
---
PS: Good luck with your Highlights poems. I think I remember reading somewhere that they don't automatically send out galleys to writers. They ask if you want to see the galleys, but at the same time you're told you can't make any changes in them if you do see them, which means you have to accept any changes they might have made in your text. Of course I could be wrong about that.

1. An infinitive is a noun, parallel to the gerund, which can be used as a subject or a direct object. In "I like to eat," "to eat" is the direct object of the verb "like," therefore, "to eat" is a noun. That (like participles) it can take a direct object ("I like to eat meat") is irrelevant to its grammatical status. When it conveys purpose ("I'm buying meat [in order] to eat it"), what we would think of as an infinitive is called the supine, though whether the supine is a noun or not I am not sure.

2. There is a grammatical phenomenon in other languages called attraction, whereby a verb can agree either with all parts of its compound subject or can be attracted to agree with whichever part of the subject is closest to it. This usage is frowned upon by the traditionally over-logical English grammarians, the sort who also frown upon things like splitting infinitives and ending sentences with prepositions; however, this multi-linguistic phenomenon may explain why a singular subject with a plural verb may "sound right" in English even when the "rules" say the verb should be plural.

3. I misread the proposed translation. I read "consume" as part of an indirect statement with an ellipsized "that," i.e., "To sigh [that] my anguish and to cry [that] my ache consume my heart . . ." I think this misreading was facilitated by the use of the infinitive rather than the gerund, which I agree with Carol and others would be the more natural, albeit unmetrical, choice.

Chris