Yeah, I had that ordered for months, before I realised it hadn't even been announced never mind being close to release.
Amazon UK are weird
- Thread starter captcalhoun
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No, it's practice in America. Practise is a strictly British (or Commonwealth) spelling, and only for the verb form.
Yeah, sorry, that was a typo that I didn't notice.
I was re-reading New "Frontier: After the Fall" last night and came across another wording quirk - Shelby was asking after the Trident crew. She asks how the crew is. It jars with me as I would have asked how the crew are. While yes, it is the crew of one ship, "crew" is a collective noun.
But so is "herd". Would you say, "A herd of cows is grazing." or "A herd of cows are grazing."? Herd gets the singular verb.
Shelby would either say she wants to know how the crew is, or, how the crewmembers are.
The earlier discussion had to do with whether named corporations (eg Pocket Books, Paramount Pictures) are treated as a single entity (US) or as a group of execs [understood] (UK, Aust., etc.).
[/quote]But so is "herd". Would you say, "A herd of cows is grazing." or "A herd of cows are grazing."? Herd gets the singular verb.[/quote]
I think that I'd been inclined to use the second one. If it were a "herd of cattle", I would use "is", but a herd of cows "are".
I think that I'd been inclined to use the second one. If it were a "herd of cattle", I would use "is", but a herd of cows "are".
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That's a common fallacy, though, because the noun that the verb goes with is "herd." The phrase "of cows" or "of cattle" is merely a modifier for that noun. It's analogous to saying "a bovine herd." In both cases, the question is the same: does the word "herd" itself, or any collective noun in general, take a singular verb (as in American English) or a plural verb (as in Brit/Commonwealth English)?
Also, the word "cattle" is just as plural as the word "cows," despite not ending in "-s." The only difference is that "cows" technically refers to an exclusively female group while "cattle" is the collective term for domesticated bovines in general. You would say "My cattle are grazing," not "My cattle is grazing."
In fact, I'm surprised to hear Therin say that he'd use a singular verb for "herd," because I thought the plural applied to all collective terms.
Here's Dictionary.com's discussion of usage for collective nouns:
http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=collective noun
^^Yeah, but you're from Arizona. Americans treat collective nouns as singular, while Brits generally treat them as plural. But Therin has proposed that Aussies, at least, treat "herd" as singular, which is what has me wondering.
I'm an Aussie too, and I'm not agreeing with Therin's usage. Children is another plural noun - I dont say "my children is...", I say "my children are..." . Coming back tp corporations etc - "Amazon UK" is one company/division as far as I know, so it wouldn't be "Amazon UK is", whereas if it were all Amazon divisions (the Amazon group) being referred it would be plural ie "The Amazon Group are..."?
"The Australian Broadcasting Corporation is please to present..." - one entity.
Interesting that your dictionary link uses only people-related terms for examples:
In British English, such nouns are commonly treated as plurals: The corporation are holding their annual meeting. The team are playing well. The government are in agreement.
I'm not so sure I'd ever say "the team are...", though. If that's supposed to be strictly correct for UK English then it's standing in for "The team [members] are...", and if in doubt I'd write it that way.
I guess the Australian balancing act between our bombardment of US/UK influences over many decades has muddied things. Not to mention how our spell-check programs come set for US English and many people don't realise they can change the preference.
US speakers don't say "My children is..." either.
It's not plural nouns that are at issue; everyone uses a plural verb for those, by definition. It's collective nouns -- terms that refer to whole groups or entities made up of multiple members, but don't have different forms for singular or plural. The Senate is, but the senators are. The former is collective, the latter is simply plural.
In this case, the analogous term would be "family." A Brit might say "My family are" where an American would say "My family is." But both would say "My children are." Because "children" is the plural of a noun that has a distinct singular form, "child."
Then that shows you've been influenced by American usage. The traditional British usage is to treat the collective "corporation" or "company" as plural, on the principle that it's made up of a plurality of individuals.
Interesting. English is not my native language and although I have been living in Britain for more than 15 years, I am still not perfect. I probably never will be.
I still keep forgetting that news is singular in at least British English. "Here is the news" still makes me cringe because it goes so much against my German feel of language.
That sheep and fish are singular, too, even when I see a lot of them is probably also something I will never really get used to.
I still keep forgetting that news is singular in at least British English. "Here is the news" still makes me cringe because it goes so much against my German feel of language.
That sheep and fish are singular, too, even when I see a lot of them is probably also something I will never really get used to.
"News" used to be plural, meaning new things, novelties. The usage had changed by the 19th century. Newspaper editor Horace Greeley was a famous holdout, clinging to the idea of news as a plural word long after most others had come to treat it as singular. He once famously telegraphed one of his reporters, "Are there any news?" to which the reporter cabled back, "Not a new."
They're not singular when there's more than one... it's just that the singular and the plural are spelled the same.
That fish is swimming along, but the other fish are swimming with each other. This sheep is white, but those sheep are brown and white.
davidh
