"In British English, collective nouns can take either singular (formal agreement) or plural (notional agreement) verb forms, according to whether the emphasis i

"In British English, collective nouns can take either singular (formal agreement) or plural (notional agreement) verb forms, according to whether the emphasis is, respectively, on the body as a whole or on the individual members; compare a committee was appointed with the committee were unable to agree." From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_and_British_English_differences#Formal_and_notional_agreement http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_and_British_English_di.... There's also some more information about the differences between the two in these articles: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_collective_nouns#Metonymic_merging_of_grammatical_number http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_collective_nouns#Metony... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synesis http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synesis