And here I’m not talking about the annoying morons quoting Austin Powers lines.
Rather – unless I’m wrong, I rarely if ever heard, before about two years ago, Americans using a plural verb form for a collective entity, whereas Brits generally always have.
E.g.: “The BBC are presenting a new series on celebrity vasectomies.” “The House of Commons are convening to consider the new Rum, Sodomy, and Lash (Increased Naval Appropriations For) Act.”
But
“NBC is featuring an interview with David Blaine’s girlfriend to determine if she and Claudia Schiffer are actually the same person.”
“Congress is considering new funding for the proposed Gulf War III.”
Where I’ve really been seeing the change to the British form is in music reporting. Again, up till about 2000, it’s my contention that no MTV (U.S.) VJ would have said “Incubus are touring the Midwest,” but rather “is touring.”
Am I right that this is a recent trend; how prevalent is it; and what is the reason for the affectation?
I used to talk that way about 15 years ago. Sometimes I still catch myself doing it. It just made grammatical sense to me. But it seems to have a negative effect on some people, so I tried to stop. FWIW, I use “his” or “his or her” when I’m referring to individuals (e.g., “Will everyone please take his seat?”) instead of “their”.
I hope we’re not going to the plural default. It’s taken years but we in the technical world are finally accepting that collective nouns like “data” and “equipment” can be treated as singular. (The data shows… The equipment was shipped…)
In the UK singular and plural can both be used, depending very much on context, for example:
“The BBC is the UK’s largest…” sounds more correct to me than the plural alternative, but “The BBC are making changes to their…” sounds just as correct as the singular.
For band names and sporting teams in the UK, the plural is always preferred tho’.
When I learned English (as a second language) this was one of the things I would discuss with my teachers at length, mainly because they did not know the answer for sure themselves.
Funny though, we had some foreign native English speakers at our school and they could not agree either. People from London, Manchester, Sidney and Detroit gave different answers.
Eventually, there were some points where agreement could be achieved (they even called their English teachers at home), and these are the ones I can recall:
There is no real reason to treat something as plural just because it consists of several sub-entities (things consist of many atoms, after all). A company is singular, two companies are plural. The same goes for one football team or club compared to two of them. However, you can say the people of (company here) are …, and you can use the company name as a shortcut. So both could be correct, but the meaning is different.
If not sure, look at the grammatical form. If you want to boast you know Latin, the data are this or that. If you don’t care, then data is.
Whatever you cannot count is singular: water (as opposed to drops of water), equipment (as opposed to pieces thereof), …
For certain words, use contrary to the rules has become common. So you may want to appear educated and use it correctly, or you just want to talk as everybody else and not be looked at suspiciously.
In short, we agreed we did not know, but at least we could gather some thoughts on the topic.
Its all part of our evil plan to make you speak proper english. Once Phase One (grammar) is complete we’ll move onto Phase Two (vocabulary), eradicating words like diaper, cellphone etc…
Two phrases I’ve picked up from BBC America are “Aren’t we the second coming,” and “More tea, Vicar?”
I can’t get much mileage from the latter expression (an acknowledgment of embarrassment or mortification) because the term Vicar isn’t part of ordinary American speech, so it loses its flavor when you have to explain it to people.
The former expression however (an indictment of the self-righteous) can be extremely effective when delivered with just the right tone of deadpan sarcasm.
Mrs FACE: Cut out the foul language, Manure indeed.
CELYN: What is correct for football teams is “Man Utd are money grabbing assholes” but Manchester City are a rather nice team who play in a lovely shade of sky blue
According to Sydes Profanosaurus, “More tea, Vicar?” is defined as a “Faux farcical attempt to distract clergyman after the launch of an air biscuit (qv) now widely used to diffuse post fart tension.”
Granted there were no clergymen, flatulence or afternoon meals to convey the meaning of the dialog in its proper context, but figuring out the meaning of idioms like these are the reason I enjoy watching foreign language television in the first place.
