But the rules of grammar don’t actually rule. Grammar is not prescriptive, merely practical. If you read the original article cited by the OP, you will notice that it is not an authoritative article on linguistics, but an article written by a sports reporter; yet it is absolutely correct in usage.
Do you think this should be re-written as “Man U is a top team, it has been used to winning for a long time.”?
Consider this sentence: “A flock of birds is migrating south for the winter: it migrates every year.”
Wrong. The flock consists of different birds every year, so it’s not the same flock.
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. [/quote]
What an excellent trick question! I’d choose none of those (to teach)…it would be “The team is taking its seats”. One collective is dispersing itself to multiple areas. Science?
You did ask what I would say though, not what I would teach…I would still never use ‘are’ with team but I could maybe see myself saying ‘their seats’ if you’re holding a gun to my head to phrase it your way. However if I did attempt to say something like that, I would definitely just go with the more natural “the players are taking their seats”, as the option you gave sounds awkward because of consistency issues.
Then we move onto the dilemma of team names, where you might have me in checkmate. The Miami Heat do indeed suck, and I would not play pool with them.
Charlie, I never claimed the usage was incorrect, I only said I personally don’t think it sounds right, and that I wouldn’t teach it that way. See all of the argument and uncertainty this thread has spawned? Teach it one way and students are still correct and never have to waste their time worrying about which way to say this nonsense. Instead they can spend their days fretting about whether to pronounce ‘the’ with long e or short u, or whether or not to print small t like a cross or with a little right hook on the bottom.
[quote=“mups”]
Charlie, I never claimed the usage was incorrect, I only said I personally don’t think it sounds right, and that I wouldn’t teach it that way. See all of the argument and uncertainty this thread has spawned? Teach it one way and students are still correct and never have to waste their time worrying about which way to say this nonsense. Instead they can spend their days fretting about whether to pronounce ‘the’ with long e or short u, or whether or not to print small t like a cross or with a little right hook on the bottom.[/quote]
I see your point. I think it’s also important to assuage our students fears about pedantic grammatical elements like these so they can concentrate on the basics. I’m not disagreeing with your point so much as the OP’s assumption that it’s a difference between British and American English.
[quote]Two good examples of collective nouns are “team” and “government,” which are both words referring to groups of (usually) people. Both “team” and “government” are count nouns. (Consider: “one team,” “two teams,” “most teams”; “one government,” “two governments,” “many governments”). However, confusion often stems from the fact that plural verb forms are often used in British English with the singular forms of these count nouns (for example: “The team have finished the project”). Conversely, in the English language as a whole, singular verb forms can often be used with nouns ending in “-s” that were once considered plural (for example: “Physics is my favorite academic subject”). This apparent “number mismatch” is actually a quite natural and logical feature of human language, and its mechanism is a subtle metonymic shift in the thoughts underlying the words.
In British English, it is generally accepted that collective nouns can take either singular or plural verb forms depending on the context and the metonymic shift that it implies. For example, “the team is in the dressing room” (formal agreement) refers to the team as an ensemble, whilst “the team are fighting among themselves” (notional agreement) refers to the team as individuals. This is also British English practice with names of countries and cities in sports contexts; for example, “Germany have won the competition,” “Madrid have lost three consecutive matches,” etc. In American English, collective nouns almost invariably take singular verb forms (formal agreement). In cases where a metonymic shift would be otherwise revealed nearby, the whole sentence may be recast to avoid the metonymy. (For example, “the team are fighting among themselves” may become “the team members are fighting among themselves” or simply “the team is fighting.”) See American and British English differences - Formal and notional agreement.
A good example of such a metonymic shift in the singular-to-plural direction (which, generally speaking, only occurs in British English) is the following sentence: “The team have finished the project.” In that sentence, the underlying thought is of the individual members of the team working together to finish the project. Their accomplishment is collective, and the emphasis is not on their individual identities, yet they are at the same time still discrete individuals; the word choice “team have” manages to convey both their collective and discrete identities simultaneously.[/quote][/quote]
Can you at least provide a reference for this quote? It reads like a bunch of mumbo jumbo. ‘Physics’ for example is not plural. Many nouns which end with ‘s’ are not plural and take a singular verb. If the use of physics with a singular verb is a sign of a metonymic shift, then show me an example of ‘Physics are my favourite subject.’
I read somewhere that prior to the Civil War, the United States were referred to in the plural more frequently, but after the Civil War, it was referred to in the singular more frequently. Actually, according to Google ngram viewer, they were both about even until just before the Civil War, and then diverged markedly, especially after 1900.
Yeah, as a Brit I have had some difficulty with this in the classrooms. As a result, I’ve been guitly of using the American way
Other collective nouns are often thought of plurally: The Police are…
One question though: what about if the team has a plural name - The Taipei Elephants is…just feels awkward.
I think it depends on in what context the terms are thought of.
Collectively: The family is sitting down …
Individually: …eating their biscuits…eh, cookies.
At the end of the day, we could be nit picking on this one.
I’d read that the Gettysburg Address was the big turning point for “these United States” to “the United States”.
I don’t really see the problem with saying both are ok for collective nouns, if the situation comes up. You can explain the logic of considering one group or multiple individuals.
“The Yankees” is not just a team name, though. Each individual is a “Yankee”. Is a player for “the Heat” a “Heat”? I am really not familiar enough with sports to know.
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