Sunday, February 19, 2012

grammatical number - Use of the verb form "review" vs "reviews"




When referring to a team of people, would it be appropriate to say that the team "reviews" something, or that they "review" that thing? Wouldn't both usages be correct depending on whether you're referring to the team as a whole, or the individuals that make it up?



Ex: "A team of trained monkeys reviews the best jobs."




It's possible that the "team [...] reviews the best jobs," but not possible to have "trained monkeys reviews" the best jobs, even though the latter section is part of the overall sentence.


Answer



"Team" is the subject of your example sentence, so it is correct to use "reviews" to agree with the singular noun "team." The phrase "of trained monkeys" is just additional information describing "team." As you note, this phrase can be omitted without changing the structure of the rest of the sentence.



Removing "A team of" would change the structure by making the plural "monkeys" the subject; in that case, "review" would be correct. However, your example is correct as written.


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