“We say, The UN is a pile of crap.
They say, The UN are heaven incarnate.”
Speaking as an Englishman, I don’t know anyone here who would describe an organisation like the UN in the plural.
“Just kind of jars the ears when you hear it in conversation and when reading the newspapers”
Not as badly as ‘Just kind of’ jars my ears sir! :)
My apologies that my colloquialism jars your ears.
But as someone who was visiting your fair Isle - I loved the Lake District by the way - you do treat your collective nouns differently than we do do you not? It didn’t upset me; just intrigued me.
I don’t know about the UN. I was making a joke. But I know I’ve seen the word ‘team’ followed by a verb in its plural form. Feel free to elaborate, and I was not trying to offend - just make a grammatical comparison.