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Question for the UK members!

Question for the UK members!

Question for the UK members!

(OP)
I was just reading a post by ScottyUK in the electrical forum about power analyzers, and I remembered a question that I have been dying to ask, and this fourm may just be the place.

It concerns the subject verb agreement where I was taught in USA english that a noun that represented a complete unit, such as a team, a company, a group, etc, was treated as a singular which made the verb plural, and have an "s" on the end of it.

Scotty, on the other hand, stated that "Dranetz make...," and Hawk make..." certain equipment.  I was taught that it would be Dranetz makes, and Hawk makes...

I first began to notice this variance in our language while watching soccer, and one of the announcers, who was scottish or irish, not british, I think his name is Shamus, or something like that kept making statements regarding the team and the singular verb.  Manchester wear the X colored shirt, instead of Manchester wears the white shirt.

Is this something new, and recent, or is this something that you UK folks have always done???  I have begun noticing native USA soccer announcers now use the UK verb form that Shamus has laid on us.

Somebody straighten me out on this.

rmw

RE: Question for the UK members!

I don't think it's a UK thing but in general a team can be singular or plural. To say that the team wears.... is singular whereas to say that the team wear .... is plural and both are correct. The same argument arises with the word data where some people argue that it is plural. Personally I favour the argument that if you refer to a team of players then it is plural whereas the team is singular. I shall have to ask someone I know from the continent as generally people who aren't english speaking tend to know english better than the english.

Incidentally, in the UK the game of kicking the ball with the foot is called football but why do americans call their game football when the ball is played by throwing it?

corus

RE: Question for the UK members!

Corus: With regard to your last question, "American football" is of course derived from the British game of "Rugby football", and when the game as played in America began to diverge from the British version, it became known as "American Rugby football". Then the "Rugby" part got dropped, and today it is just known as "American football". In the US, "American" is usually dropped as well, and it's just referred to as "football". So the fault lies with the British for calling it Rugby football  in the first place. For their part, the British have dropped the "football" and now just call it "Rugby". Since legend has it that the game was originally a deviant form of football played at Rugby school, we should probably blame Rugby school itself for the somewhat illogical name.

RE: Question for the UK members!

Hi rmw,

I hadn't given this the slightest bit of consideration until you asked! I can't comment on the rights and wrongs of my grammar, but your geography is terrible:

...who was scottish or irish, not british ...

When did Scotland cease to be British?! Britain comprises Scotland, England, Wales, and Northern Ireland. Having said that, I'm not 'British'; I'm English and proud of it!


-----------------------------------

Start each new day with a smile.

Get it over with.

RE: Question for the UK members!

EM,

I noticed you used the phrase "touch wood" as opposed to the more commom, to me anyway, "knock on wood."  Is that something that's more prevalent to the UK?

TTFN

RE: Question for the UK members!

It's easy to be British, you just live (t)here.

Britain consists of English, Irish, Scottish and Welsh ethnic groups, (dunno about the Manx folks, are they a seperate ethnic group? they avoided Roman occupation, anyway) so indigenous peoples of these groups can call themseleves Welsh for example, and also be British, but never English.

On the other hand, you don't need to be English, Irish, Welsh or Scottish to be British. You can be a Falklands Islander and be British. Or a Gibraltarian. Or a Channel Islander i.e. otherwise French.

If they've any sense, the people of Calais, and of parts of Normandy and Brittany are also, or should be, British.

Actually, I understand RMWs problem and balme Shakespeare. He, cheekily, has Henry the V calling out " to fill up this breech with our English dead" when many of his army were not English but Welsh and Irish and Scottish (witness the various Captains Fluellyn etc.) But, at that time i don't belive there was a sense of Britishness. So Shakespeare presumably is using "English" in the sense that we today use "British". I expect the Shakespeare buffs will sort me out now.
Unless, of course, he was being a bit astute; their is nothing so attractive to the Scots, Welsh or Irish as filling up a breech with "English" dead.

But that doesn't answer the original query so,
OK, you can red flag me now for repetition, deviation or hesitation.

JMW
www.viscoanalyser.com
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RE: Question for the UK members!

Hi IRstuff,

'Touch wood' is common in the UK as a mildly superstitious saying. For instance while commissioning a new item of plant, one might observe to a colleague: "No smoke yet, touch wood...".

Is "knock on wood" the broad equivalent in the US? I've never heard of it before.

-----------------------------------

Start each new day with a smile.

Get it over with.

RE: Question for the UK members!

"Knock on wood" would be used in the identical context in the US.  

Interesting, another item to add to the UK/US word/phrase list.

TTFN

RE: Question for the UK members!

As a side note - American Football was not derived from Rugby.  Both evolved from the same game which was played by Romans circa 100 - 300 AD and was quite violent.

This game was variously popular and banned over the next 1000 or so years.  It was played frequently between towns during the middle ages and was not considered proper sport for the nobles.  In the 1700's the first style splits on this game ocurred which resulted in several different variations on this game.  The three that still exist today are British Football, Rugby and American Football.

The common misconception that American Football evolved from Rugby comes from a series of changes made in the late 1800's where Rugby was used as the model to "civilise" the American Football Version since they were so similar.  American Football truly evolved from Harrow which was a sport which developed at the same time as Rugby.  The Rugby rules came from the Rugby College and similarly the Harrow rules came from Harrow College.

Whereas Rugby is still true to its original form Harrow was a purely running game with set formations that became American Football and its passing concept in the early 1900's.  At least that was what the research indicated when I did my paper on the history of Football about 15 years ago.

RE: Question for the UK members!

CanEngJohn : Very interesting - it carries the ring of truth. However, in certain American films from the 1930's - although I can't say which - I have heard American football referred to as American Rugby Football, so at some point the game seems to have been commonly associated with Rugby in the American mind. But at least I have never believed the commonly held British myth that the boys at Rugby school invented the game from scratch, although trying to dispell that notion would be the British equivalent of persuading Americans that baseball is derived from the English game of rounders and had nothing to do with Abner Doubleday!
ScottyUK/IRstuff:  Sorry about the "touch wood" - an unfortunate lapse - I have been only partially Americanized. ScottyUK : If you ever happen to see the film "Casablanca" - and actually it's run on old movie channels so often I can't believe you haven't - there is a song in there sung by Dooley Wilson called "Knock on Wood".

RE: Question for the UK members!

CanEngJohn: Since your post piqued my interest, I looked for as many references to the origins of football as I could find in the web. All the references I found stated that the Harrow rules did not permit running with the ball, and that only Rugby rules allowed this, which would seem to contradict your claim about Harrow. And misconception or not, the great majority of the references appear to claim Rugby as the progenitor of American football, the following being typical:
http://www.footballresearch.com/articles/frpage.cfm?topic=c-to1870
But I still have an open mind on the subject!

RE: Question for the UK members!

(OP)
This turned into a geography thread, and a football thread, neither of which I intended.  I asked a grammer question.

As I hear the verb usage, it is incorrect as I was taught.

I was taught that if the collective nown was used as a singular, meaning that it could be replaced by the pronoun "it" then the verb took the singular form, but if the collective noun could be replaced by the pronoun "they", then the verb took on a plural form.

What I hear being said often could be interpreted either way, because if a sports announcer, Manchester take, it infers that Manchester could be replaced by the pronoun they, when often the sense of the sentence is referring to the entity, which would be replaced by "it", and not the group, which would be replaced by "they" and make the verb usage correct as spoken.

I also hear this from Sky news announcers who Fox uses for their news broadcasters from parts of the world.

Point being, no matter where they are from on the islands, (british that is) they are the only english speakers that I consistantly hear doing that.

Shed some light on that for me, please.

rmw

RE: Question for the UK members!

I believe rmw that you are correct.  Collective Nouns, which have been discussed in other threads, can be either singular or plural depending on their usage, and as is always the case, the noun and verb should agree in tense.

With respect to the history of football (all three flavors), you need to go back further than the Romans to the ancient Greeks, and their game of  harpaston.  Interestingly enough, the Greek work harpaston means "handball", not "football."  Something was lost and/or changed as is moved and evolved through the generations into its three major flavors today:  Soccer, Rugby, and American Football.

RE: Question for the UK members!

Handball may pre-date the ancient Greeks too: it was played by the Mayan people some 5000 years ago, and perhaps earlier than that. Some things have progressed though - they used to sacrifice the winning team to the gods! Some days it is good to be second best...

-----------------------------------

Start each new day with a smile.

Get it over with.

RE: Question for the UK members!

rmw:

To answer your question - and sorry to contradict corus - a team or a company or an organisation is singular.

It's a feature of almost every document I proof read - sentence after sentence full of singular entities with plural verb forms. If you want to write proper English you must say "My company was ...." or "the project team announces ....".

I agree it occasionally sounds peculiar, but there are ways round it. "Team members have discussed ...." is OK because it's the members, not the team we're talking about.

I believe that in most cases, using the singular form is an advantage; it gives the impression that the company or team is an entity, all pulling together. Alas, sometimes the impression is not substantiated by maverick engineers who enjoy doing their own thing, creating a collection of motley individuals.

I oughta know, I is one meself.

Cheers - John

RE: Question for the UK members!

Ditto.  Just try saying:

The company are united.
The team are united.

UGH!.  Clearly better as singular

TTFN

RE: Question for the UK members!

The general rule that I know of is
The verb must match the noun it refers to.  

A team or a company is a singular entity and should use the singular verb.  If you are referring to the individuals within the unit the plural must be used.  If you are referring to the whole group as a group then it must be singular.  However if you are referring to a quanitity of groups then you must use plural.

This gets real confusing when the singular name is a plural form such as the Anaheim Mighty Ducks or Montreal Canadiens.  These result in phrases which can be awkward even when gramatically correct eg ..

The Canadiens has an average attendence of 20,000.

We want to wtite "have" since Canadiens sounds plural however the plural is a singular entity identifying a singular team.  

As to my offshoot -  I could be wrong with the Harrow reference.  It was 15 years ago.  The sport was termed American Rugby Football in the mid 1800's due to the significant rule changes that were influenced by the game of Rugby.  The game itself is recorded as being played before Rugby by approximately 1 generation.  The term American Football shows up for the first time in American Rugby Football which is what it was referred to by the British.  This is also why it is commonly believed to be invented from Rugby.  If anything the name was definately derived from Rugby.

RE: Question for the UK members!

(OP)
So, back to the fact that I hear a lot of (Corus, forgive me) Brits, or that is to say people from the various islands getting this backward??  Is the venacular changing.  This one Soccer (football) or is it Football (soccer) announcer is spreading this manner of speaking to native north americans that work with him in the sports broadcasting area, and then, I see it as referenced in my original post.

I think the engish language from the isles is changing, myself.

rmw

RE: Question for the UK members!

Yes, English is changing, here in UK, over the pond and everywhere else. It has always changed, and, unlike Swedish and French, no body exists to stop it changing -nor should there be (although the BBC became a self-appointed arbiter of 'good' English in the last century).

The strength of English as a useful and dynamic language is enhanced by the ability to change, and changes should be welcomed - cautiously.

But - if we adopt transient 'fashion' words before they have become established, this is detrimental to the language. A decade ago, youngsters were using the word 'bad' to mean 'good'. This meaning has now disappeared but it found its way into some dictionaries as a slang usage - it shouldn't have. Similarly, many people say 'I should of gone ....' instead of 'I should have ...' This is palpably wrong and should never become part of the language.

Conversely, if we gradually adopt 'thru' as a better spelling than 'through', then so be it. Or, if we change the meaning of words ('awful' used to mean 'wonderful', i.e. awe-inspiring), then that's OK, too. I defend the use of 'OK' because it's been around a long time and is adopted as part of the English language.

So, my view is: no change for the sake of it, but allow judicious and gradual change. And don't take it all too seriously.

John

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