Grammar question

[Hobie the One]

I don't know why I always seem to ask these but...

Suppose I am refering to a professional sports team. Since I'm from western PA, That'd be the Steelers.

What form of the past tense of 'to be' should I use?

The team is singular. There is only one team.

It is, however made up of individuals who are all part of the team.

In other words, "the Steelers were easily able to defeat the Cleveland Browns." That sounds just fine to me :D but isnt the subject of that sentence singular?

"The Steelers was easily able to defeat the Cleveland Browns," just sounds weird.

Help?

[psiekier]

Originally posted by Hobie the One
Suppose I am refering to a professional sports team. Since I'm from western PA, That'd be the Steelers.

What form of the past tense of 'to be' should I use?

The team is singular. There is only one team.

It is, however made up of individuals who are all part of the team.

In other words, "the Steelers were easily able to defeat the Cleveland Browns." That sounds just fine to me :D but isnt the subject of that sentence singular?

"The Steelers was easily able to defeat the Cleveland Browns," just sounds weird. Use the plural form, i.e. "the Steelers were easily able to defeat the Cleveland Browns."

Generally, in American English, we use the form of verbs that correspond superficially to the noun that forms the subject. For example, we all know (except for the Iraqi Minister of Information, apparently) "the US Army is currently in Baghdad," and "the Cleveland Browns will never amount to anything."

In British English, however, verbs are typically formed to match the single/group aspect you're puzzling over. For example, if Brits could understand our fascination with football, they would say, "Pittsburgh were easily able to defeat the Cleveland Browns."

Sounds goofy, huh?

[Hobie the One]

Thanks Pete.

But now I'm more confused. Take your example

"The US Army is currently in Baghdad."

Compare this to

"The Steelers are in Cleveland this weekend."

Same idea, [the group] is somewhere but two different forms of the verb.

h.

[troub]

I always assumed that most sports team names are in the plural form (Steelers, Browns, Cardinals, Cubs, Diamondbacks, etc.) because the team name is meant to refer to the individuals as a group, much like you would refer to any other group like doctors, girl scouts, Teamsters, Freemasons, etc. Also supporting this is the fact that individuals on the teams are often referred to using the singular form of the team name, ie "The legendary Cardinal, Stan Musial" or "For what team does Sammy Sosa play? He's a Cub."

Go ahead and use the plural form without remorse :D

[RealityChuck]

U.S. sports team nicknames generally take the plural form, probably because most team names are plural nouns. Note that if you refer to the team by their city/college, the singular is used:

Syracuse rules!
The Orangemen rule!

psiekier is right in a more general sense. In the US, most collective nouns take the singular, while in the UK, it's the plural:

US: The committee is meeting today.
UK: The committee are meeting today.

[threephi]

The fashion in naming new sports teams in the US for the last few years has been to use singular forms for the collective team, eg the Miami Heat, Orlando Magic, New York Liberty, etc. etc.

But I would still treat these nouns as plurals when referring to the whole team, eg. "The Heat are playing the Jazz tonight"

[brianmelendez]

When a noun is singular in form but collective in meaning, the noun can take a singular or a plural verb, as long as it is consistently singular or plural within the piece of writing. But when the noun is already plural in form, and refers to a group of people, then it always takes a plural verb.

From Bryan A. Garner, A Dictionary of Modern American Usage 133 (1998), s.v. "collective nouns":A collective noun names an aggregate of individuals or things with a singular form. For example, ensemble, group, and team refer to several people, but each word is singular.

The main consideration in skillfully handling them is consistency in the use of a singular or plural verb. If, in the beginning of an essay, the phrasing is the faculty was, then every reference to faculty as a noun should be singular throughout the whole. On the other hand, a writer who wishes to emphasize the individual persons more than the body of persons may decide to write the faculty were, though members of the faculty were is preferable because it's more accurate.

. . . .

Apart from the desire for consistency, there is little "right" or "wrong" on this subject: collective nouns take sometimes a singular and sometimes a plural verb. The trend in AmE is to regard the collective noun as expressing a unit; hence, the singular is the usual form. When the individuals in the collection or group receive the emphasis, the plural verb is acceptable <that deconstructionist school were not wholly in error>. But generally in AmE collective nouns take singular verbs, as in the jury finds, the panel is, the committee believes, the board has decided, etc.The same considerations are absent when the noun is already plural, and therefore not "collective." The only exception is when the noun is expressing an amount that is the subject of a predicate nominative whose number is singular ("six hours is a long time," "ten dollars is not very much money") or where such a singular appositive is implied ("six hours is too long [a time]," (ten dollars is not enough [money]"). But "the Steelers" is not expressing an amount and so takes a plural verb.
Originally posted by Hobie the One
What form of the past tense of 'to be' should I use?
?

[mhendo]

Originally posted by Hobie the One
I don't know why I always seem to ask these but... If you do indeed ask such questions on a regular basis, may i suggest getting yourself a good usage dictionary?

As you're in the United States, i would recommend Bryan Garner, A Dictionary of Modern American Usage, which is, in my opinion, the best currently available.

If you want a more prescriptivist approach to grammar and usage, and one that takes more of an English (as opposed to American) viewpoint, you could also try R.W. Burchfield, Fowler's Modern Engllish Usage (3rd ed.).

[pseudotriton ruber ruber]

Very awkward with either Chicago or Boston in the AL. "Fred Lynn was a magnificent Red Sock" sounds like the man was an outstanding item of hosiery.

[Isosleepy]

as a rule
Steelers Rule!
Pittsburgh Rules!
(except not in Hockey, but then, that doesn't have too many rules)

[moriah]

Don't forget that often there is an implied subject.

E.g., the members of the committee are here. The committee are anxious to start. [Members, a regular plural noun, is the main idea. And so when 'committee' takes its place in the second sentence, it, too, is plural.]

The will of the committee is not to be underestimated. The committee is not afraid to weild its power. [Since committee stands in for the singular 'will,' it, too, is singular.]

This gets back to the above mentioned idea of whether you're referring to the collective as a collective unit (singular), or as a collection of members (plural).

E.g., The Steelers players are hyped up. The Steelers are here to win!

The Steelers footbal team is a force to be reckoned with. The Steelers is one of the best franchises in the country.

People may choose the singular or the plural depending whether, in their mind, there is a more dominant singular or plural idea to which the collective noun is attached.

Another way to look at it is to ask "all of them" or "each of them"?

The flock is charging. The flock are going to eat you.

In the first sentence, I'm thinking all of them at once. In the second sentence I'm thinking each of them and as many of them in turn, as individuals.

Peace.
-------------------
The Hivemind are telling me to stop now.

[Hobie the One]

mhendo

It's not actually often. And I did know that the plural verb would be correct but you can see where my quandary set in. Thanks for the suggestions and I might just go out and purchase one of these books.

Although it's much easier just to ask here...;)

Isosleepy

Amen. How many days until football preseason?

moriah

The Steelers footbal team is a force to be reckoned with. The Steelers is one of the best franchises in the country.

How true, but what I am getting is that the first is correct but the second would be "The Steelers are one of the best franchises in country." Since Steelers is a plural noun.

Another way to look at it is to ask "all of them" or "each of them"?

"The Steelers are in Cleveland." Each of them and all of them but in this sense I would think I mean all of them, so wouldn't it be is.

You can see what I mean.

[Hobie the One]

brianmelendez

I'm sorry. Lack of sleep and the fact that I'm busy at work are making me rude.

Thank you for the excellent answer and the cite. That was pretty much what I was looking for. I knew what the answer was but I wasn't sure why.

[moriah]

Originally posted by Hobie the One
["The Steelers are one of the best franchises in the country." Since Steelers is a plural noun.

Nope. "One of the best franchises" is singular. "One" is the predicate nominative in the sentence, while "of the best franchises" is a prepositional phrase which doesn't change the number of "one." Since "one" is singular, so is the noun being equated with it, i.e., "the Steelers."

Consider this:

"Is the Steelers a footaball team."

"Yes the Steelers is one."

Which is a shortened from of:

"Yes, the Steelers is a football team."

And, going back to the sentence in question...

"The Steelers [team] is one of the best franchises in the country."

Peace.
-----------------
Is it proper to say, "The yolk of eggs are white" or, "The yolk of eggs is white?"

[Hobie the One]

"One of the best franchises" is singular.

True, but that's not the subject of the sentence.

If you had said "One of the best franchises is the Steelers," then I would have agreed with you.

You are actually bringing up what made me question this in the first place.

The example I used is that of "the Steelers are in Cleveland." What you are actually saying is that "the Steelers [team] are [is] in Cleveland." See what I mean.

BTW it would be proper to say "the yolk of eggs is yellow .":D

[pulykamell]

Originally posted by threephi
The fashion in naming new sports teams in the US for the last few years has been to use singular forms for the collective team, eg the Miami Heat, Orlando Magic, New York Liberty, etc. etc.

But I would still treat these nouns as plurals when referring to the whole team, eg. "The Heat are playing the Jazz tonight"

Yeah, but generally in American usage, collective nouns take the singular. For example, "Notre Dame's in town today for the big match." Although now I must say "Notre Dame are in town today..." doesn't strike me as peculiar. In my speaking area where I grew up (urban Chicago), the singular verb was always used with singular collectives. We would never say "Miami are having a good year" but rather "Miami's having a good year."

Of course, plurals such as "the Cubs," "the Mets," "the Steelers" and the such would take a plural noun, since the noun itself is plural. While tagging a plural verb on a singular collective sounds relatively ok, putting a singular verb on "the Cubs" sounds just plain ridiculous.

Even in British English, where the plural form is more standard, there doesn't seem to be any clear consensus.

[Hobie the One]

For example, "Notre Dame's in town today for the big match."

To put that in terms of the question I asked, wouldn't it be, "the Fighting Irish are in town for the big match?"

[prisoner6655321]

What do you call someone who plays for the Steelers:

"A member of The Steelers."

or,

"A Steeler."

The correct answer is "A Steeler."

"The Steelers" is a group of men who call themselves "steeler". Each member of the team is a Steeler. So the plural form is correct.

[Hobie the One]

"The Steelers" is a group of men who call themselves "steeler".

Correct. A single group of men. One team. It would be singular, right?;)

[prisoner6655321]

Correct. A single group of men. One team. It would be singular, right?No, a group of animals called "snake" is called "snakes" not "snake."
BTW, it's not like a group of animals that are called "fish" or "person." The plural of fish is school and person is people. The plural form of Steeler is Steelers.

School:fish = People:person = Snakes:snake = Steelers:steeler

[prisoner6655321]

That should be
School:fish = People : Person = Snakes:snake = Steelers:steeler

Stupid smileys :D

[DrMatrix]

The plural of person is people. And the plural of people is peoples. :D

[Enderw24]

Green Bay Packers are people.

Soylent Green is people.

[brianmelendez]

Originally posted by prisoner6655321
No, a group of animals called "snake" is called "snakes" not "snake."
BTW, it's not like a group of animals that are called "fish" or "person." The plural of fish is school and person is people. The plural form of Steeler is Steelers.

School:fish = People:person = Snakes:snake = Steelers:steeler
The plural of fish is fish: <one fish, two fish, red fish, blue fish>. (The plural can also be fishes, usually when the singular refers to a species or kind of fish rather than an individual animal.) The plural of person is persons: <person or persons unknown>.

There is some confusion here between a plural and a collective noun. A plural form is an inflected form of the same root as the singular: the regular plural in English forms by adding -s or -es to the singular form. A collective noun is one that refers to a group of individual members: <school of fish>, <exaltation of larks>, <murder of crows>. But a collective noun is a different noun altogether--gramatically unrelated to the noun that describes the individual members of the collective group--with its own plural: <two schools of fish>, <three murders of crows>. For more about collective nouns, see the recent threads Exaltation of Larks? Sez Who? (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=176124), Collective Nouns Question (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=166630), More than just a Murder of Crows? Help! (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=162112). (The collective noun for snakes, by the way, can be bed, den, knot, nest, pit, or rave.)

People is an odd case: it is not the plural form of person, but it is used almost as if it were. Both person and people form regular plurals, persons and peoples, but we usually talk about a single person but several people--not several persons, which is gramatically correct yet noticeably unidiomatic. People can take a singular or a plural verb depending on its sense--which is one of the points that got this thread started.

[OliverTwistofLime]

I

[OliverTwistofLime]

One of the best: Isn't there just ONE best? Shouldn't it be one of the BETTER? or was this voted out years ago?

Secondly...Is Jazz as in Utah Jazz, singular AND plural....like shrimp?

[brianmelendez]

Originally posted by MadSam
One of the best: Isn't there just ONE best? Shouldn't it be one of the BETTER? or was this voted out years ago?
The "best" can include one or more. There are two issues here.

First, best is the superlative degree of the adjective good, and "best" or any other superlative can refer to a single member of a set or several. If you talk about the best (or tallest, longest, shortest, whatever) member of the set, then you are talking about only one: <Mount Everest is the world's highest mountain>. But you can also talk about the three "best" members of the set, in which case they are each one of the best: <Mount Everest, K2, and Kangchenjunga are the world's three highest mountains.> <K2 is one of the highest mountains in the world.>

Second, some adjectives are uncomparable--that is, their positive degree is absolute, and cannot meaningfully form a comparison. Most adjectives compare in three degrees: positive <high>; comparative, usually formed by adding the adverb more or the suffix -er <more high, higher>; and superlative, usually formed by adding the adverb most or the suffix -est <most high, highest>. But some adjectives do not undergo comparison:Many adjectives describe absolute states or conditions and cannot take "more" or "most," "less" or "least," or intensives such as "very" or "quite" or "largely." The illogic of such combinations is illustrated in this sentence: "It is possible that this idea too has outlived its usefulness and soon will be largely discarded." The literal meaning of "discard" impinges on the metaphor here: it is hard to imagine something being halfway discarded (though certainly an idea could be halfway discredited). Deleting "largely" clears the meaning.

The best-known uncomparable (/uhn-KOM-pruh-buhl/) adjective is "unique" (= one of a kind). Because something is either unique or not unique, there can be no degrees of uniqueness. Hence "more unique" and "very unique" are incorrect. Yet something may be "almost unique" or "not quite unique" -- the Hope Diamond is unique; a Gutenberg Bible is almost unique. The diamond is not "more unique," though.

Many other words belong to this class, such as "preferable" -- e.g.: "Stoll said the city also plans dozens of hearings with groups, showing different scenarios of how growth could be handled and getting feedback on what is most preferable [delete 'most']." Jack Money, "Technology Useful in City Planning," Sunday Oklahoman, 27 Apr. 1997, at 2.

Among the more common uncomparable adjectives are these: absolute, adequate, chief, complete, devoid, entire, false, fatal, final, ideal, impossible, inevitable, infinite, irrevocable, main, manifest, only, paramount, perfect, perpetual, possible, preferable, principal, stationary, sufficient, unanimous, unavoidable, unbroken, uniform, unique, universal, void, whole.

For example, the phrase "more possible" should typically be "more feasible," "more practicable," or the like, since something is either possible or impossible. E.g.: "The VA medical centers, which have a long history of hospitalizing patients, have been stepping up outpatient services as they become more and more possible [read 'more feasible'] with emerging technology." Mary McGrath, "Debate Over VA Center Comes Home," Omaha World-Herald, 16 Feb. 1997, at B1.

A few adjectives, such as "harmless," are wrongly thought of as uncomparable. It's hopelessly donnish to insist that something is either "harmful" or "harmless" and that you can't write "more harmful," "more harmless," or "relatively harmless." The same is true of many other words.From Bryan A. Garner, Garner's Modern American Usage (2d ed. 2003).

Some authorities disagree about degrees of uniqueness, even when unique takes its absolute sense meaning "one of a kind" (as opposed to its more ambiguous sense meaning merely "unusual" or "distinct"). Uniqueness occurs in a context and, while the uniqueness itself may be absolute and uncomparable, there can be a comparison between the contexts in which it occurs. For example, a thing that is one in a thousand is unique, but a thing that is one in a million is even more unique. A seven-foot-tall basketball player may be unique within her high school, but not the only seven-foot-tall high-school basketball player in her whole state, in which case the eight-foot-tall player who is the only one of her kind in the state high-school conference is even more unique. Likewise preferable: two alternatives may both be preferable to the status quo, but one is more preferable than the other. Merriam-Webster’s (1994) argues,Those who insist that unique cannot be modified by such adverbs as more, most, and very are clearly wrong: our evidence shows that it can be and very frequently is modified by such adverbs. Those who believe that the use of such modifiers threatens to weaken (or has already weakened) the "having no like or equal" sense of unique are also wrong: our evidence shows that the "having no like or equal" sense is flourishing. And those who regard the use of unique to mean "unusual" or "distinctive" as a modern corruption are emphatically wrong: unique has been used with those meanings for well over a hundred years. Should you therefore use the disputed sense of unique with utter disregard for possible criticism? Should you shake the hand of the nearest usage commentator and tell him that you find his books "extremely unique"? Maybe not. The reasons people have for disliking such usage may not be especially sound, but they are cherished nonetheless, and they are widely promoted. There is no denying that many good writers and editors strongly disapprove of unique in its "unusual" sense, even though it is indisputably well established in general prose. Perhaps you might try being one who knows enough about its bad reputation to avoid it but who also knows enough about its actual history not to sneer at those who use it.Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary of English Usage 929 (1994). M-W cites more than a dozen examples in support of its argument. (On the other hand, the examples that M-W cites are uncomfortably often sports-related, and M-W barely survived its first printing.)

Merriam-Webster may not be authoritative enough. But Stephen King is another story. The following passage appears in his recent novel Dreamcatcher:His body has been snatched, most righteously and completely snatched. Although there will be no army of zombies, not even a townful. He is unique. He senses that Pete, Henry, and the Beav are also unique (was unique, in the Beav’s case), but he is the most unique of all. You’re not supposed to be able to say that—like the cheese belonging to the Farmer in the Dell, unique supposedly stands alone—but this is a rare case where that rule doesn’t apply. Pete and Beaver were unique, Henry is uniquer, and he, Jonesy, is uniquest. Look, he’s even starring in his own movie! How unique is that, as his oldest son would say.Stephen King, Dreamcatcher 282 (2001).

[mhendo]

Nice discussion, brian. I prefer Garner's entry to M-W's. The latter is a little too descriptivist for my liking, and i think Garner walks the prescriptive/descriptive tightrope about as well as anyone.