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It's quite common in UK English (and maybe others, I don't know), to refer to "singular" or collective non-people entities (such as companies, I know Gmail itse
by dieggsy 9mo ago
It's quite common in UK English (and maybe others, I don't know), to refer to "singular" or collective non-people entities (such as companies, I know Gmail itself isn't one) using the plural form of verbs.
This isn't in my natural speech, but I quite like it; it seems to kind of imply "the people behind [company]" rather than anthropomorphizing the company itself. ...generally though I think it's just colloquial convention and not that deep.
- HPsquared 9mo agoI wonder how this language quirk changes how people think about the statement "a corporation is a person".
- anal_reactor 9mo agoThere's something funny about someone trying to be smart and pointing out a typo or some other minor irrelevant error only to be proven completely wrong.
- WillPostForFood 9mo agoHe isn't wasn't wrong, and the parent post wasn't even correcting him. Gmail is not a corporation, it is a product - singular.
- dieggsy 9mo agoGmail is a product, but the comment wasn't saying "Gmail the product deserves to be shamed... ", more like "the Gmail team/devs/company deserves to be shamed...", which is why the plural still made sense to me (given the omission of an explicit "team"). The singular makes sense to me too. In any case, I wasn't really interested in correcting or proving anyone right or wrong, just pointing out an interesting linguistic detail and where the grammar may have come from.
- toyg 9mo agoCan you "shame" a product, though? Obviously not. So you're shaming the people who built Gmail, the organization - hence the plural form is acceptable.
- NuclearPM 9mo agoIronic.