RE: job-hunt weirdness

[Michael West <WestM -at- ap -dot- aurecongroup -dot- com>]

Lauren wrote:

> I have, ... er, HAS, never heard that a plural of things should be 
treated
> as a collective noun in every case because there is a case where the 
plural
> of those things is collective noun.  My eyes HAS seen many things, but 
this
> is getting the better of me.
-

----------------------
As an American-trained tech writer  working in Australia, I had to do 
quite a bit of ear-adjusting to get used to the more frequent use of 
plural verbs with collective nouns in Australian and British English.

For example, in the US we would normally write "Our team is winning", and 
if we wrote "Our team are winning" many readers would waste no time in 
telling us how illiterate we are.

But in Australian and British English, both are standard and correct, the 
difference being entirely "notional". That is, if we are thinking of "our 
team" as an entity, we say "the team is"; and if we think of the team as 
several individuals, we say "the team are."

--
Mike







Disclaimer - http://www.aurecongroup.com/apac/disclaimer/ 




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