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It's a quirk of British English. Collective nouns are often treated as if they were plural. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_American_and_British_Engl
by pdw 14y ago
It's a quirk of British English. Collective nouns are often treated as if they were plural. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_American_and_British_English#Formal_and_notional_agreement http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_American_and_Brit...
- glaugh 14y agoAs an American English speaker I find it delightful to read or hear occasionally. For me it's a nice, occasional reminder that groups are made up of individuals.
- alexkus 14y agoAs a Brit who has lived in the US for a couple of years on and off it gets very confusing. I can never remember which spelling is correct for the current situation for some terms: centre/center, tire/tyre, singular or plural collective nouns, etc. I know there are two variants, I just can't remember which one is the US one and which is the UK one; stuff like colour/color is easy, as is when to use sneakers/trainers (only made that mistake once) but some words play tricks on me.
- delinka 14y agoMeh. Just be British and don't worry about it! ;-)