To: Past Your Eyes
That is the Queen's English.
Collective nouns can take the plural verb form when the emphasis is on the body as a whole.
13 posted on
05/18/2007 3:20:11 AM PDT by
TomB
("The terrorist wraps himself in the world's grievances to cloak his true motives." - S. Rushdie)
To: TomB
Don't you mean 'that
ARE the Queen's English', English being a collective noun?
Where I come from, unit means one. Hard to get any more singular than one.
14 posted on
05/18/2007 3:27:25 AM PDT by
Past Your Eyes
(Some people are too stupid to be ashamed.)
To: TomB
You might as well say “To each their own”.
15 posted on
05/18/2007 3:28:51 AM PDT by
Past Your Eyes
(Some people are too stupid to be ashamed.)
To: TomB
You might as well say “To each their own”.
16 posted on
05/18/2007 3:28:51 AM PDT by
Past Your Eyes
(Some people are too stupid to be ashamed.)
To: TomB
Exactly. Or perhaps it would be fairer to say that both single and plural verb forms can be applied to a collective noun.
For instance: it’s hard to say that one of the following is definitively wrong.
“the Army are kicking Sadr’s butt”
“the Army is kicking Sadr’s butt”
To: TomB
That is the Queen's English. Collective nouns can take the plural verb form when the emphasis is on the body as a whole.
You are correct.
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