If the answer to my question is “Jane and Sue are eating pizza.”, can you ask “Who are eating pizza?” or should it be “Who is eating pizza?” Who are eating pizza just sounds strange to me but I am not sure if it is incorrect.
thanks for any help.
and don’t forget…“Who be eatin’ that pizza?”
…life is rarely as simple as one hopes…
No.
but you can say “who are they?” no?
I guess it really depends.
If you have a picture in front of your students and they could see that Jane and Sue are eating pizza then technically it is grammartically accurate to ask “Who are eating pizza?”.
T: “Look at the picture. Can you see who are eating pizza here?”
S: “Yes, Jane and Sue are.”
However if you are asking without an answer obvious, the grammatically correct way to ask would be “Who is eating pizza?”
(With what I have said, really I can’t guarantee it is absolutely correct, though. Just to put in my two cents and correction is appreciated.)
I don’t think that’s right.
Who are eating?
Who is eating? Jane and Peter are.
Who is eating? Jane is.
Which children are eating? Jane and Peter.
i guess it’s just possible with a plural noun.
who are they–yes
who are those people–yes
who are eating–no
who are absent–no
who are here–no
My English speaking friend just told me that basically I’m correct.
If it’s obvious when the question is being asked that there is more than one person eating the pizza, then the question should be “who are” instead of “who is”. If it is not clear how many people are eating pizza, then the question would be “who is”.
Examples:
There are six people in the room and two people are eating pizza. You want to know who they are. You ask, “Who are eating pizza?” “Jane and Sue are.” You could also ask “who is eating pizza?” in this situation.
There are six people in the room. You want to order pizza. You want to know who wants to eat pizza. You ask, “Who is eating pizza?” The answer would be, “I am.” “Jane is and I am.” “We are.” But the question, although asked to the group, is in fact asked of each individual.
You are with one friend. You want to know if he wants to eat pizza. “Who are eating pizza” is just wrong. But then so is “Who is eating pizza”. The correct question is, “Who is paying?”
My friend also told me, that it is an obvious answer, not an anwer obvious.
No way.
Yes okay I’ll back down from my answer. As I said I couldn’t guarantee it and my English speaking friend has been in Taiwan for too long and forgets how to speak grammatically correct English.
I agree with Tempo gain.
Yes. No matter how many people we are expecting to hear in the answer, we should still use a singular verb after who.
Woodchild, why am you here?
Sorry, just messing with you. I think you’re right.
Definitely “who is” not “who are” here. “Who is going tonight?” “Who is playing at that gig tonight?” etc. It also happens with other sentences like that - “Who wants to go to the movies?” not “Who want to go…” regardless of how many do.
“Who” is always a singular pronoun. There are no exceptions for this.
In the sentence “Who are they?” “they” is the subject, not “who”.
“Who are they?” The subject is “they” and the predicate nominative is “who”. This is reflected in the answer “They are…”
“Who are they talking to?” The subject is “they” and the object is “who” as the answer would be “They are talking to…”
Even in “Who is this?” “who” is still the predicate nominative (answer: This is…)
In “Who is eating?” It doesn’t matter if it’s one person, five people, or a picture of 100 people all eating, “who” is still a singular pronoun and never takes on the plural form, even when in reference to more than one person. Similar argument to “everybody”.
The same thing with “what” for non-people nouns in questions. “What are they doing?” but not “What are going on?”
Never, ever, ever use “who” (or “what”) as a plural subject pronoun.
What ImaniOU et al said.
When asking about the subject of a verb who is always singular, even when it is obvious that the subject is plural e.g.
Who lives in those houses?
Who has been chatting?
This does seem counterintuitive, so learners who have had years of ‘in English the verb must match the subject number’ drilled into them often get confused, and native speakers who try to think about it logically end up doubting their own instincts like Woodchild’s friend did.
Another common example where grammar ‘rules’ and logical thinking go wrong and hurt my poor delicate native ears is when “wh words are question words” and “verb before subject in a question” combine to make:
Do you know what is it?*
Can you see what are they?*
I don’t know where is he.*
I can’t rember why did I do it.*
If I had NT$1 for every time my girlfriend has said one of those, I’ve noticed it, but I didn’t correct it because I’ve given up trying, I would be a very rich man. 
Thanks for all the help.
Who are eating just sounded wrong to me but I wasnt sure why it was wrong. At least now I can attempt to explain it instead of my usual “I don’t know why you say it this way but that’s just the way it is.”
Thanks again.
I think native speakers may make the mistake sometimes because it doesn’t sound totally wrong to have ‘are’ following ‘who.’ We can do that when ‘who’ is not acting as a pronoun, but functioning to start off a clause.
“I want all the men in the room who are thinking of women to raise their hands.”
Maybe that will help your native friend excuse himself. 
ImaniOU is still correct, BTW. Because ‘who’ is always singular as a pronoun. No exceptions.
The ‘who’ in your example is a relative pronoun and we can use ‘who are’ in that case. We certainly wouldn’t say ‘The children who is happy study English.’
With the interrogative ‘who’, only ‘who is’ is allowed.
Yep, you’re right. I was confusing ‘who’ with ‘where’, which functions as a relative pronoun but is an adverb. (Alfonso Soriano is on 2nd)
So, ImaniOU should have written:[quote]
“Who” is always singular as an interrogative pronoun. There are no exceptions for this. [/quote]
And I was wrong that he was right. 
But my main point is that people may be getting it confused because of the function of the relative pronoun taking its value from the noun it’s modifying.
Who are you?
“A preposition at the end of a sentence
is something up with which I will not put!”
[quote=“puiwaihin”]
So, ImaniOU should have written:[quote]
“Who” is always singular as an interrogative pronoun. There are no exceptions for this. [/quote][/quote]
Almost but not quite.
Who as an ‘interrogative pronoun’ can be used to ask about the subject of a clause, at which time it is always singular.
Who is eating pizza?
Who lives in those houses? etc.
but
It can also be used to ask about the compliment of a clause, in which case it is singular or plural depending on context.
Who is your worst enemy? or Who are your worst enemies?