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Another BritEng question--group nouns plural or singular?

Another BritEng question--group nouns plural or singular?

Another BritEng question--group nouns plural or singular?

(OP)
I know that Over Here (US) we'd say "the committee is", treating the committee as one thing, and Over There (UK) you might say "the committee are", treating the committee as many people.

What about something like the ABC Agency or the XYZ Ministry?  Are those singular or plural?

Hg

RE: Another BritEng question--group nouns plural or singular?

I vote for singular.
jimbo

Buy a dictionary, keep it nearby and USE it. Webster's New World Dictionary of American English is recommended, and Webster's Collegiate Dictionary.

RE: Another BritEng question--group nouns plural or singular?

It's all singular in Australia, and UK too

Jeff

RE: Another BritEng question--group nouns plural or singular?

A collective noun is always singular - whether in Britain, USA, Australia, or anywhere that English is spoken. This is one of the most common gripes I have when reviewing reports of others:

[Insert Organisation Name here] are planning to ...

should ALWAYS read:

[Insert Company Name here] is planning to ...

It is an easy trap to fall into - when you think of an organisation, you tend to think of the many people that make up that organisation; hence, the tendency to say "we are ...". However, an organisation is a single entity; therefore, "the organisation is ..."

RE: Another BritEng question--group nouns plural or singular?

Not quite sure Notnats. In the UK the police are coming to get you.

RE: Another BritEng question--group nouns plural or singular?

I've noticed this with regards to UK sports teams.

For example, the BCC announcers, and even the Americans on CCN International which bugs me even more, say "Liverpool play Manchester United."  Not quite as bad to me as fingernails on a chalk board, but close!

In the States they would say "Chicago plays New York" or else "The Cubs play the Mets" but never "Chicago play New York."

RE: Another BritEng question--group nouns plural or singular?

Good point, Yates.

I am 100% clear in my own mind that these organisations are singular and should be treated as such.

In UK, we don't seem to be very good at this, which is why it's the single most frequent error I find when asked to proof-read a report. Interested to learn that US engineers get it right when we don't.

But you're right about the police.... Saying "The police is looking into it" just doesn't sound right - and I don't believe it sounds good to the American ear either  - or am I wrong?

Maybe it's the exception to the rule, and the word "police" is shorthand for "members of the constabulary".

John

RE: Another BritEng question--group nouns plural or singular?

(OP)
I think it must be.  "The police are..." but "The police department is..."  

That's a weird one, because we use "police" like "policemen", except that you'd never say "there are two police standing over there".

But you're saying that "Manchester are winning" is actually NOT correct UKish?  Wow.  I'd heard it so much I thought it was just a different rule over there.

Hg

RE: Another BritEng question--group nouns plural or singular?

Blame the trendy lefty commo pinky new-age education types with their "no need to teach grammar or spelling - it stifles creativity" school of pedagogics.  Problem is we are not all James Joyce, so all this anarchic freedom to express oneself has led to some confusion when we try to communicate - the trendies in US went one way, and the trendies in UK (not wanting to be seen following the US?) went another.

Think I may need to don my flak jacket around about now...

Bung
Life is non-linear...

RE: Another BritEng question--group nouns plural or singular?

(OP)
Right you are!  Too bad for your theory that the whole notion of standardization of spelling and grammar is a relatively modern notion.

http://shakespeare.about.com/library/faqs/blfaqssp...

On the other hand, I'm reasonably sure that it was trendy lefty commo pinky new-age education types who allowed Latin to diverge into French, Spanish, Italian, etc.

Hg

RE: Another BritEng question--group nouns plural or singular?

Absolutely.  But we are wandering off topic here.  It took the might of the Church of Rome to maintain communications across Europe through the Dark Ages and beyond by settling on one "dialect" of Latin and sticking with it, thus allowing everybody else to fall into little parochial silos.  (All I remember from school days Latin is that Cicero and Caesar did not share the same Latin grammar). Even Newton's "Principae Mathematica" is written in Latin, not the English of his day.  Or how about opera, with its insistence on some archaic form of Viennese German?

I don't recall ever saying standardised spelling or grammar was "relatively modern", just that is necessary.  And standards can and do change.  Even must change.  In 1947, less than 60 years ago the word "transistor" did not exist, so could not have had a "standard" spelling or appear in any dictionary.  And we all know that if a word is not in Oxford / Brewster /Macquarie (select dictionary of choce) it is not a real word!

Bung
Life is non-linear...

RE: Another BritEng question--group nouns plural or singular?

Getting back to "Police", I think it is an adjective rather than a collective noun. If I say "The Police are coming" I am really saying "The Police (officers) are coming"

Likewise "Manchester United (footballers) are playing Liverpool (footballers)". Manchester and Liverpol are adjectives describing the footballers.


Jeff

RE: Another BritEng question--group nouns plural or singular?

Nice one, notnats. That's a cop-out. An elegant one, but a cop-out.

When the FA announces the draws between football teams, I believe they say, as they pull the slips of paper from the hat:

" .... and Manchester United  ..... (pregnant pause)  ..... plays   Liverpool".

Or am I mistaken? It's just possible that even the Brits get it right occasionally, even by accident.

John

RE: Another BritEng question--group nouns plural or singular?

The FA cup draw has a little role play script involving two football celebraties, one drawing the home team numbers and one drawing the away team numbers. The FA chairman stands in the middle and fills in the blanks. It goes something like this:

Home team selector: "Number 34"
FA Official: (looks up number on table) "Manchester United. Will play..." or "Manchester United. Will be at home to..."
Away team selector: "Number 29"
FA Official: "Liverpool." (followed by some comment or statistic about performances in previous rounds of the cup or that "Player X used to play for team Y which should make for an interesting tie" etc etc

"Will play" is of course the same whether the teams are considered as singular or plural. Unfortunately this doesn't really advance the argument further.

M  

--
Dr Michael F Platten

RE: Another BritEng question--group nouns plural or singular?

Yeah, I will agree the football teams thing was a bit rough.

 But I am fair dinkum about the police example. "Police" is an adjective, eg. "police force" "police car" "police station".

When used as "the police arrived too late", "police" is an adjective with an understood noun.

Jeff

RE: Another BritEng question--group nouns plural or singular?

notnats is right on the money.
Police ARE known to be a group of law enforcement officers. (note political correctness)
The police force IS a law enforcement body.
Manchester United IS learning to play Aussie Rules football.
Manchester United players ARE learning to play Aussie Rules football.

RE: Another BritEng question--group nouns plural or singular?


M U players learning Aussie footy? And mess up their hairdos?

No they isn't.

RE: Another BritEng question--group nouns plural or singular?

What about the use of "The". Here in the UK there is a lot of talk about "Government", "committee" and "Conference" without the "The". This is expecially true of the Labour party. I had heard that it was because in Russian there is no definite article and Labour used to look up to the Communist Party and tried to imitate them. They say "Are you going to Conference this year?" instead of "Are you going to the Conference"

Any thoughts?

StephenA

RE: Another BritEng question--group nouns plural or singular?

I can smell weekend approaching in this tread. Have you noticed how interesting this column becomes right around weekends?

I think the Brits and Colonials should abandon all the "the-s" to make life easier. The next step is to convince the Germans to drop their "der, die, das-es".

What next? Maybe common language like standardised Latin? Wouldn't that be nice?
Unified Language for Unified World! At least with Latin nobody would feel left out.

Putting Human Factor Back in Engineering

RE: Another BritEng question--group nouns plural or singular?

Am I right in thinking there is no firm rule about the number of a verb governed by a singular collective noun, and that it is best to go by the sense - ie, whether the collective noun stands for a single entity as in the army is on a voluntary basis, or for its constituents as in the army are above the average civilian height?

Besides, it appears that Marks & Spencer, the United States, the United Nations, politics, economics, Chase Manhattan, etc., all are it and take a singular verb, don't they ?

Any comment ?

RE: Another BritEng question--group nouns plural or singular?

I am hardly a linguist and maybe I am extending myself by saying that I don't see a firm rule there and maybe there isn't one?

Maybe these forms are customary depending on the common use?

Putting Human Factor Back in Engineering

RE: Another BritEng question--group nouns plural or singular?

25362,
"the army are above the average civilian height"

That's terrible, you just can't say that. The verb must agree with the noun, but in this case it wouldn't make sense even then.

"the army is above the average civilian height"

Perhaps a bad example, you might get away with

"The army are very kind to their captives",

but it is easier and better to do it right:

"The army is very kind to its captives"

...But no one will believe you.

Jeff

RE: Another BritEng question--group nouns plural or singular?

for whatever it is worth Jeff, I believe you...

Putting Human Factor Back in Engineering

RE: Another BritEng question--group nouns plural or singular?

Samples were taken from The Economist Pocket Style Book ISBN 0-85058-087-0, 1986, considered, apriori, an invaluable reference work by many.

I pressume you are right when the phrase is read out of context and as a stand-alone expression. However, it seems the mentioned example would be correct when referring to the constituents.  

Another example by the same style book under the heading of collective nouns:

The council are at sixes and sevens over rates.

Could these be considered metonymies, in the sense that one term refers to a wider -related- idea ?

Being a Spanish speaker trying to express myself in correct English, I sincerely hope The Economist conforms "comme il faut" with accepted standards.

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