Saturday, February 7, 2015

dialects - Collective nouns with plural verbs: the 'American practice/s' versus the 'British practice/s'

"The group are all here."



The British seem more inclined to use a plural verb ("are") in sentences like this than Americans are.



At some time in the past it struck me that there are some singular collective nouns with which Americans do normally use a plural verb, so maybe the list of verbs with which Americans do that is simply smaller than the corresponding British list. But I find I can't remember what examples I had in mind. Has anyone compiled those lists?

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