{"id":72013,"date":"2019-09-12T03:22:13","date_gmt":"2019-09-12T03:22:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/perfectyourenglish.com\/blog\/?p=72013"},"modified":"2019-09-12T03:22:13","modified_gmt":"2019-09-12T03:22:13","slug":"singular-nouns-that-take-plural-verbs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/perfectyourenglish.com\/blog\/singular-nouns-that-take-plural-verbs\/","title":{"rendered":"Singular Nouns That Take Plural Verbs"},"content":{"rendered":"<h3>Groups of people\/ collective nouns<\/h3>\n<p>In British English, singular nouns like<strong><em> family, government, jury, team, committee<\/em><\/strong>, which refer to groups of people, can be used with either singular or plural verbs and pronouns.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The <strong>team is\/are<\/strong> going to win.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Plural forms are common when the group is being regarded as a collection of people doing personal things; and in these cases we use <strong>who, not which,<\/strong> as a relative pronoun. Singular forms are common when the whole group is being thought of as an impersonal unit. Note that in these cases, we use <strong>which<\/strong> as a relative pronoun.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The <strong>committee has<\/strong> announced <strong>its<\/strong> decision. (The committee is regarded as an impersonal unit.)<\/li>\n<li>The c<strong>ommittee are<\/strong> divided on this issue. (The committee is regarded as a group of individuals.)<\/li>\n<li>The average Indian <strong>family has<\/strong> 4.2 members. <strong>It is<\/strong> small and richer than 20 years ago.<\/li>\n<li>My <strong>family live<\/strong> in different parts of India.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>When a collective noun is used with a singular determiner (e.g. a\/an, each, every, this, that), singular verbs and pronouns are common.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The<strong> team are<\/strong> full of enthusiasm.<\/li>\n<li><strong>A team which is<\/strong> full of enthusiasm has a better chance of winning. (More natural than <em>A team who are full of<\/em> \u2026)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Examples of collective nouns which can be used with both singular and plural verbs in British English are: <strong><em>bank, family, party, mob, crowd, team, flock, herd, army, fleet, jury, nation, committee, government, firm, public, choir, school, class, jury, staff, club, ministry, union<\/em><\/strong> etc.<\/p>\n<p>In American English, a collective noun is almost always treated as singular. Note that family is an exception to this rule. It can have a plural verb. Americans often use <strong>plural pronouns<\/strong> to refer to collective nouns.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The<strong> team is<\/strong> full of confidence. <strong>They are<\/strong> going to win.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>Plural expressions with singular verbs<\/h2>\n<p>When we talk about amounts and quantities we usually use singular determiners, verbs and pronouns, even if the noun is plural.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Where <strong>is that ten pounds<\/strong> I lent you? (NOT Where are those ten pounds I lent you?)<\/li>\n<li>Twenty <strong>miles is<\/strong> a long way to walk.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Six months was<\/strong> a long time to be away.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Fifty dollars is<\/strong> too much to lose.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Two singular nouns joined by <strong>or<\/strong> takes a singular verb.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Petrol or kerosene <strong>is<\/strong> used.<\/li>\n<li>Jam or butter<strong> wa<\/strong>s not available to the prisoners.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>When a singular noun and a plural noun is joined by <strong>or<\/strong>, the verb agrees with the nearest noun. Note that in these cases, it would be better to use the plural noun second; then a plural verb must be used.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Bullets or a bomb is<\/strong> not allowed on the plane.<\/li>\n<li>A melon<strong> or grapes are<\/strong> suitable.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3>Singular indefinite person<\/h3>\n<p><strong>They\/them\/their<\/strong> is often used to refer to a singular indefinite person who has already been mentioned. This is common after <em>each, every, either, neither, someone\/somebody, anyone\/anybody, nobody\/none, whoever, and no.<\/em><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>If <strong>any<\/strong> of your friends is interested, tell <strong>them<\/strong> to contact me.<\/li>\n<li>If <strong>anybody<\/strong> calls, take <strong>their<\/strong> name and address.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Somebody<\/strong> left <strong>their<\/strong> umbrella behind yesterday.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Nobody<\/strong> came, did <strong>they?<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>This use of <strong><em>they\/them\/their<\/em><\/strong> is convenient when the sex of the person referred to is unknown.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Groups of people\/ collective nouns In British English, singular nouns like family, government, jury, team, committee, which refer to groups of people, can be used with either singular or plural verbs and pronouns. The&#46;&#46;&#46;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[251],"tags":[312,1144,1145,1141,1142,1140,1143],"class_list":["post-72013","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-grammar","tag-collective-nouns","tag-collective-nouns-with-plural-verbs","tag-collective-nouns-with-singular-verbs","tag-plural-nouns-with-singular-verbs","tag-plural-verbs","tag-singular-nouns-with-plural-verbs","tag-singular-verbs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/perfectyourenglish.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72013","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/perfectyourenglish.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/perfectyourenglish.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/perfectyourenglish.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/perfectyourenglish.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=72013"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/perfectyourenglish.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72013\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":72014,"href":"https:\/\/perfectyourenglish.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72013\/revisions\/72014"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/perfectyourenglish.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=72013"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/perfectyourenglish.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=72013"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/perfectyourenglish.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=72013"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}