Singular nouns denoting groups can take plural verb agreement in British English.
Tim Send a noteboard - 14/06/2010 12:31:25 PM
But they don't have to.
"Australia is a large country" could only ever have singular agreement, but "Australia have lost the match" is more normal than "Australia has lost the match" (though the latter isn't exactly wrong). The two are in free variation with probably a slight statistical tendency towards the plural.
The reason is that in "Australia has/have lost the match", the noun "Australia" doesn't actually refer to the country Australia: it's a metonym for a team of 11 men representing it on a football field. Since a group of 11 men is semantically plural, plural agreement can be used.
American English, by contrast, prefers syntactic agreement to semantic agreement, and therefore can only say "Australia has lost the match".
"Australia is a large country" could only ever have singular agreement, but "Australia have lost the match" is more normal than "Australia has lost the match" (though the latter isn't exactly wrong). The two are in free variation with probably a slight statistical tendency towards the plural.
The reason is that in "Australia has/have lost the match", the noun "Australia" doesn't actually refer to the country Australia: it's a metonym for a team of 11 men representing it on a football field. Since a group of 11 men is semantically plural, plural agreement can be used.
American English, by contrast, prefers syntactic agreement to semantic agreement, and therefore can only say "Australia has lost the match".
Vigilantibus non dormientibus jura subveniunt.
—Nous disons en allemand : le guerre, le mort, le lune, alors que 'soleil' et 'amour' sont du sexe féminin : la soleil, la amour. La vie est neutre.
—La vie ? Neutre ? C'est très joli, et surtout très logique.
—Nous disons en allemand : le guerre, le mort, le lune, alors que 'soleil' et 'amour' sont du sexe féminin : la soleil, la amour. La vie est neutre.
—La vie ? Neutre ? C'est très joli, et surtout très logique.
British grammar
- 14/06/2010 07:15:43 AM
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Entities (like nations and companies) are considered to be in the plural in British
- 14/06/2010 07:38:05 AM
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One thing I've been wondering ... for, oh, the last five or six hours...
- 14/06/2010 08:32:56 AM
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Kind of but not really any more. But it's still different in continental Europe.
- 14/06/2010 08:36:40 AM
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Originally a billion was a million million, but we've given up on that one now. *NM*
- 14/06/2010 12:32:31 PM
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it might be an accent thing, but i think "was" sounds horrible in that context
- 14/06/2010 08:38:33 AM
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Singular nouns denoting groups can take plural verb agreement in British English.
- 14/06/2010 12:31:25 PM
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