Hmmm … true enough!
But …
There’s no I in coach.
There’s no I in manager.
There’s no I in owner.
The American standard of English is generally more preferred here. I don’t like “enforcing” that, though. So, whenever the question comes up, I say that “The team is…” and “The team are…” are both good, and tell about who uses which. At my last job, the other two foreign teachers were British(I’m American) and the kids and Chinese Teachers were often confused by this.
What really confuses me is biscuit/cookie/roll/maybe one other. I can’t keep the American/British “translation” straight, so I only teach the American version.
Also, there’s no “me” in team!
Oh wait…
Come on, somebody bring up the plural of ‘octopus’.
Saw a fist-fight start in a Kaohsiung pub over that one.
octopodes 
octopodes [/quote]
octopussies
You think too much. Just because one English sports commentator uses Team in the plural and one American sports commentator uses team in the singular, doesn’t make a standard. Unless you are writing a Taiwanese English test of course.
'The team are…" sounds idiotic. The players are, the teams are. Regardless of its accepted nature (somewhere?), what would be the point in teaching students here that, unless your intent is to confuse?
Americans always think of a group of individuals as a singular unit? That sounds worryingly Communist to me.
Fortunately, we Brits are much more freedom lovin’ and allow ourselves the choice of whether we want to think of a collective noun as a single entity or a group of individuals.
To you, maybe. To others, less so.
We ascertained earlier in this thread that “the team are” is a valid construct, and there isn’t much point continuing to argue that everyone should do things your way.
The aim is not to confuse students. The aim is to make sure they understand that English is spoken in many different ways around the world, and that insisting on one narrow definition of the language harms their chances of effective communication. The fact that you’ve never used the term is merely an incidental talking point, not a final and binding judgement the rest of us have to abide by.
Teaching students here that a singular noun (1 team) should, or even can be matched with ‘are’ makes no sense whatsoever when you can easily teach them the alternate which is consistent with plural grammar rules. Keeping it simple and easy to keep sorted is merely smart, effective teaching, regardless of how you speak when you go home.
I’m also not so sure how teaching it the narrow (that is, consistent) way harms effective communication. The team is happy. Did you understand me? The cat are big. Now you don’t quite as much, but to a student that could sound ok if you can do it with team as well. While your aim may not be to confuse, the result is what matters.
You may desire to simplify things, but you’re ignoring the fact that in English collective nouns are treated differently than run-of-the-mill count nouns.
My aim is to prepare my students for the real world, not for some idealised parochial town where everyone speaks the same way.
I teach high school, university, adults, real people with real jobs that require them to speak wth real foreigners. They come to my and complain that their clients and foreign friends don’t speak proper English like they learned from their teachers. I have to teach them stuff that I personally find stupid and ugly, but it’s used by millions of people in the real world, so I teach it.
Now, you’ve made your point and I’ve made mine. Shall we respect that we have different opinions and move on? Or do you want to insist that your way is the only acceptable way?
What are you blathering on about? Do what you like, I’m trying to make a point, and goshdarnit it will be made! I wasn’t knocking on you.
Its good you teach your students practically, I try to do the same. But there’s a difference between teaching people to speak ‘normally’, like in the real world as you say, and teaching redundancies. For example, I’m guessing you might teach your students something like “I’m gonna”…which is indeed practical and useful. But there is really is no practical purpose to teaching the plural thing we’re talking about in 2 different ways…the person isn’t going to sound unnatural if they only say “the team is”. At worst they will sound…American I guess?
Now this is a minor example we’re discussing, but memorization of redundant shite is a big part of the reason ESL levels here are so crap, be it knowing 100 different synonyms for ‘big’, or using every preposition known to man in the same paragraph. I suspect this isn’t news to you…just saying if someone has yet to master a language, always better to master the basics first and not have any extracurricular stuff floating around, making someone think of a rule/exception like this when it wasn’t even necessary to teach/learn it in the first place.
You’ve made your point. I’ve made mine. Don’t you have better things to do than insist on making me agree with you?
Blathering, to a Brit, is derogatory. It makes you sound like you’re insulting me. I suggest you stop.
So, how would you do it if you were British? Or wanted to use some British material with group subjects? Would you edit yourself and the material?
To me, it seems simpler to teach it one way. If the issue comes up, talk about it. Students probably aren’t first introduced to language using groups when they learn “he is”/“they are”. Hell, that’s probably how British/Americans do it. We usually use our own texts in English class. Occasionally, see a strange piece of language from another country, and get used to that manner of speaking.
Disregarding the fact that it’s completely standard, and speaking as an American, the idea of “the team” being treated as plural isn’t anywhere near as complex or strange as it’s being made out to be.
Blattering? Well, I’m not sure if the British would say it this way exactly, but there’s a lot of overlap in their insults and those from Australia, where I’m from. We’d say someone was fucking about like an old mole at a christening or that they wouldn’t know shit from clay or that they wouldn’t know their arse from their elbow. Well, actually, the first just means generally screwing about incompetently and the second and third mean someone is clueless. Not really blattering, but would make English class a lot more interesting, even if incomprehensible.
“Teacher, you wouldn’t know shit from clay. We’re never going to need to know whether team is plural or singular. Now stop fucking about like an old mole at a christening.” There you go, practical language!
You’re right, it’s not that complex nor strange…to me it just seems fundamentally wrong to be able to say ‘the team are’ and ‘the teams are’. A team is another way of saying a singular group.
Loretta, I didn’t mean to insult, it’s just that you were indeed blathering a bit, seemingly somewhat offended I gave my 2 cents on the topic. Saying you were acting a certain way is not an insult, it’s an observation (and I wasn’t even being that serious). I typed one sentence in this thread giving my opinion and you replied “there isn’t much point continuing to argue that everyone should do things your way.” Continuing? Arguing? I’m quite sure I was doing neither of those, since it was my first post in the thread and I wasn’t replying to anyone specifically.
I usually just read the topic and throw in my opinion if I feel like it, without censoring myself or going through other posts. My specific post here was just me being blunt (and somewhat parodically ignorant with my 'somewhere?" comment), that was the only intent. I will admit sometimes I type with a quasi-trolling tone but it’s only there to stimulate and amuse (maybe just myself this time?), and not to inflame.
All of that said, I’m sure you’re an excellent teacher and a fine human being, let’s be BFFs. Or is that BFF? Cheers.
Mr Mups,
So would you say the team is taking its seat or their seats. Or would you say the team are taking their seats. Or would you rather just head down to the pool hall for a few rounds of pool with the team whether singular or plural. 