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@Prudence, the vocabulary of the senses can be tricky.

Let's start with sound and sight. English has verbs for

1. a person making an effort
2. a person having an experience, without making an effort
3. a thing affecting a person

So for sound

1. I listened.
2. I heard a dog.
3. The dog sounded angry.

For sight

1. I looked.
2. I saw the flower.
3. The flower looked pretty

For sight the verb look is used for [1] and [3]. For taste there is even less variety.

1. I tasted.
2. I tasted the soup.
3. The soup tasted salty.

Now there is another verb. It's a two-word verb taste of. We use it

• only for [3]
• referring not to the object tasted but to the strongest ingredient

So we can say

1. I tasted.
2. I tasted the soup.
   3a. The soup tasted good.
   3b. It tasted of asparagus.

Now your question only makes sense with meaning [2]. If you say

May I taste of it?

It means

'Please cover me with it, so that when somebody eats me they will taste it — more strongly than they'll taste my flesh.'

which is not what you mean.

There is a four-word verb you could use: have a taste of. So you could say

May I have a taste of it?

But the subject should agree with the verb right?

As a general rule, yes. But the rule has exceptions.

Two principles may work against the rule:

1. NOTIONAL — The subject phrase may contain the idea of several things
2. PROXIMITY — A plural noun may be nearer to the verb and the singular subject further away.

Notional agreement is quite common with COLLECTIVE NOUNS such as team, government, staff etc. This is more common among British speakers than American speakers, but it does happen in both dialects.

The second set of rules are grammar rules is subject to both principles

1. NOTIONAL —The idea is plural.
2. PROXIMITY — The noun form rules is closer to the verb than the noun form set.

This doesn't mean that the verb must be plural. But it does explain why I find it acceptable.

Your new example

Part of the walls are to be cleaned.

is not acceptable in British English either.

Yes, there is PROXIMITY. But the NOTION of the subject is singular.

When I say that it's unacceptable, I don't mean that nobody ever says it. But it's the sort of careless mistake that English speakers recognise as wrong. If they notice that they've made the mistake, then they correct themselves.

Returning to the original question from @cbalatel257 , I really don't believe that

The second set of rules is grammar rules.

is acceptable in writing or in careful speech.

There's an agreed term for the part before the verb be (the second set of rules).
It's the SUBJECT.

The part after be (grammar rules) is sometimes identifies by a traditional term.
It's the COMPLEMENT.

Now, be is sentences like this means that the SUBJECT is identical to the COMPLEMENT.
So either both are singular or both are plural. It's just not grammatical to say

is grammar rules

I suspect that some speakers won't like

The second set of rules are grammar rules

But I believe all speakers will dislike

The second set of rules is grammar rules

The writer is concentrating on the period when the experiments didn't change. This is because he or she wants to make a contrast. By using the words 'it wasn't until' he or she is implying that the right time to change the experiments was in that period. But the experiments weren't changed.

Yes, they were finally changed, but not at the time the writer expected. No, the experimenters kept them up until some time around Christmas. Then, and only then, they changed. But, in the writer's opinion, they should have changed earlier.

I disagree @sullah_ranjha114.

• Flu is not often used as a COUNTABLE NOUN.
• When COUNTABLE it usually means 'strain of flu'.
• Unusually, it can mean 'epidemic of flu'.

Only in the sense of 'epidemic' is it possible to write something like The Flu that Killed Millions or the terrible flu of 1918.

In the UNCOUNTABLE sense of flu we can choose whether to include the:

I had flu
or
I had the flu

But if we add terrible, then only one construction is possible:

I had terrible flu
but not
I had the terrible flu

@AliNateghi, flu (like the long form influenza) is regarded as an UNCOUNTABLE NOUN.

If you want to count, you can only say
one, two, three strains of flu
one, two, three cases of flu
one, two, bouts of flu
one, two three outbreaks of flu
one, two, three epidemics of flu

The grammar of disease names is a little odd. We can both I had flu and I had the flu.
There's the same choice for several diseases that have been named for a long time. For example:

(the) measles, (the) whooping cough, (the) chicken pox, (the) gout.

But we can't use the when the disease name is technical or modern. We don't say for example:

the arthritis, the laryngitis, the malaria, the aids, the ebola.

There are also some conditions with older or more familiar names that we don't see as diseases, so we don't use the. For example:

a cold, a chill, a fever, a temperature.

But when we see cold as a disease, we call it the cold or the common cold, never just common cold.

So there's an interesting grammatical difference between plague and bubonic plague.
We can say the plague but (usually) not the bubonic plague.

So the terrible flu means 'the terrible disease called flu'.
For a more specific meaning we have to say the terrible strain of flu or the terrible case of flu.
We can also say the terrible outbreak of flu or (with a slightly different meaning) the outbreak of terrible flu.

I you want to describe an experience using terrible, you can't use either article.

I had terrible flu.

(Although you can say I had a terrible bout of flu.)