Grammar: Subject-Verb Agreement

The most common errors with subject-verb agreement are to do with number. On most occasions, we have no difficulty

Imran was cycling along the path when he discovered the body.
Here, the singular subject Imran agrees with the singular auxiliary verb was and the singular pronoun he. Similarly

Imran and Claire were cycling along the path when they discovered the body.
This time, the plural subject Imran and Claire agrees with the plural auxiliary verb were and the plural pronoun they. But the rules of agreement are not always this straightforward The book is one of those rare novels that owes (owe?) its (their?)

popularity more to word-of-mouth recommendation than to the publishers advertising. Bread and butter are (is?) included in the price. If I was (were?) in your shoes, Id be more careful.
Each of these examples, in which the bracketed alternative is correct, illustrates a different principle of agreement. The first concerns the error called attraction; the second, the disparity between grammatical agreement and notional agreement; and the third, the change of mood from indicative to subjunctive.