I’m reading the Yahoo Music biography of Jet, I might be purchasing their album from iTunes, and I finally decided to get this issue off my chest. Correctness be damned, using a band name and a plural verb form just rings false in my little head. “Jet are …”, “Jet don’t …” sounds wrong, reads wrong, wrong wrong wrong wrong!
It’s ok when the name is plural, like the Rolling Stones or the Hives or something. But “Jet” is singular, I know it’s a group but pbbbbbbbbbbb!
I feel better.
I believe it’s one of those “across the pond” differences. It’s not just band names, either. It’s companies, teams, and associations. I notice it when I’m watching soccer on TV in my apartment. I hear “England have lost again,” and “Germany are the best team ever” all the time.
I wouldn’t worry about it too much.
In the former NHL there’s the Toronto Maple Leafs
Agreed with AdmiralCrunch, that it seems to be a regional variation…and it seems to be similar in sport and music…we’d look oddly at anyone who asked, for example, “how Ipswich is doing” in sporting terms. Non-geographic names like Arsenal are treated the same. And bands are always ‘are’, unless somebody will produce exceptions (which will no doubt happen…)
Oh, I’m sure it’s correct usage, I just don’t like it. Which I think is pretty close to a definition of “pychotic” I read somewhere.
Yeah, for the same reason they have flied out from time to time, not flown out.
Well, not them, obviously.
How do you feel about consistency within the band name, such as The Lone Rangers?
I always thought that Americans did use the singular form of the verb, e.g. “Jet is on tour”; “Slipknot is highly overrated”, etc. To me that sounds weird, but that’s cos I’m used to hearing it the British way.