Saturday, April 28, 2007

A Grammatical Update

You might remember my rant about using the wrong verb with collective nouns. I did some reading on this topic and have an answer that I don't like but can understand. If you're talking about the group doing something as a whole, you treat them as a singular entity. "The band is performing at 8:00." If you're talking about the individuals in the group doing something independently, then the collective noun is treated as plural. "The band are traveling from their hometowns to L.A." I would get around ever using this by adding "the members of" or something to make it obviously plural... "The members of the band are traveling from their hometowns to L.A."

That's my lesson for the day. Class dismissed!

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