Do the lyrics of 'more than words' contain a Grammar fault? [closed]

Question

I have a question about the song 'more than words' from Extreme.

Saying I love you, is not the words I want to hear from you.

Shouldn't it be 'are not the words'?

Answer 1

'Saying' here is the verb / a verby (depending on analysis chosen) ing-form and refers to the uttering not the utterance.

Compare the equally unacceptable 'Writing a letter is not the information required.'

Answer 2

There does exist grammatical aberration in the sentence “Saying ‘I love you’ is not the words I want to hear from you,” but it is not subject-verb concord that is violated here. I would argue that it would be widely perceived as unidiomatic to say, “‘I love you’ are not the words,” and even less idiomatic to say, “Saying ‘I love you’ are not the words.”

From Quirk’s Grammar, on Subject-verb concord:

It is possible to generalize the rule of concord to ‘A subject which is not clearly semantically plural requires a singular verb’; that is, to treat singular as the unmarked form, to be used in neutral circumstances, where no positive indication of plurality is present.

To positively indicate plurality, one might resort to something like the following:

“I” and “love” and “you” are not the words you have to spew.

Say “let” and “me” and “touch,” as more than words can mean as much.

But I digress.

The discord in the sentence in question is between the hyponym “I love you” and the hypernym “the words”.

The same aberration occurs in Edwin Ashworth's example: "Writing a letter is not the information required."

The nominal -ing participle clause “writing a letter” is not concordant with the hypernym “the information.” In other words, writing a letter is not a type of information; however, it is a kind of gesture:

Writing a letter is not the gesture required. Sending a text message is the preferred method of reply. (Affected but acceptable.)

Even if the subject of the sentence was the -ing phrase “Saying I love you,” an acceptable hypernym would have to be singular, i.e. “Saying I love you is not the way I want you to express your love for me.”

However, I interpret the lyric differently:

[Me] saying [that the phrase] “I love you” is not the [phrase] I want to hear from you, it’s not that I want you not to say [it], but if you only knew how easy it would be to show me how you feel, more than words is all you have to do to make it real, then you wouldn’t have to say that you love me ‘cause I’d already know.

I would analyze "I love you" as a single unit, a hyponym with a possible hypernym being "the phrase," not least of all because the phrase is in quotes in the lyrics as they appear in the liner notes (see below).

Quirk, again:

Such noun phrases can be regarded as appositive structures with an implied singular head: the book ‘Crime and Punishment’, the expression ‘senior citizens’, [the phrase “I love you.”] (The phrase in brackets mine.)

This is my paraphrase of my interpretation, colometrically rendered for easier discernment:

I say that

“I love you” is not the phrase I want to hear from you

not because I want you not to say it

but because

if you only knew how easy it would be to communicate how you feel through touch,

you wouldn’t have to say that you love me

because I’d already know.

@Casper, you are right to reduce the phrase to, “(this) is not the (thing) I want to hear from you,” in accordance with Edwin’s concise elucidation, so long as the “this” is a type of the “thing.”

The lyrics as they appear in the liner notes: