All of you are unhappy with it? That just seems so sad…
It’s spelled colleague.
Terminus Est, see post 5.
Yes, but he repeated the mistake in post #18.
It isn’t you know. I can’t say that someone, somewhere, hasn’t ever said or written that, but I can assure you that referring to Ford as “Ford’s” is not common in Britain.
Well, then there’s no ambiguity, is there?
Maybe it isn’t true in the case of Ford, but I have noticed a tendency of Britons to tack on an s at the end of corporate names. And that tendency isn’t prevalent in American English.
The corporations themselves tack on the “s”. Who are we to take it off again? It’s not as if Harrods were insisting on being called “Harrod”, for instance.
Obviously, I’m talking about corporate names that don’t officially have an s at the end.
For example, I have a friend who works for the law firm Sidley Austin in London. He and his colleagues habitually refer to the firm as Sidleys although the firm itself has never used that form officially.
I have noticed this extra s from the mouths of Britons quite frequently. If you’re telling me you personally don’t do it, that’s fine, but my personal experience tells me it’s rather common for Britons to do it.
Furthermore, if what you’re saying is true and Britons don’t do it, then the ambiguity that Blaster Master identifies in Post No. 9 doesn’t exist.
Apologies - I’d slightly missed the point you were making. I add an “s” in situations like the one you describe, as well. I fail to see what’s wrong with it, though.
I don’t always take time to spellcheck when at work. And it’s not something I’m good at naturally.
Well, my point was that the ambiguity identified in Post No. 9 only exists in British English. You tell me if there’s anything wrong with that.
You don’t say Tesco’s or Marks and Spencer’s?
And yet only today, I saw a post (on another message board) where someone from Birmingham, Alabama referred to Newcastle Brown Ale as “Newcastles”. Which is just… all kinds of wrong. 
It’s a mistake to reason too much from generalities, was my only point: what may be true as an overall trend may be entirely false in any particular instance.
And no – there’s no ambiguity at all that I can see: but then, of course, the real company name isn’t Ford – so perhaps there is. After all, British English is the context that we’re talking about.
I still can’t see any problem with the original sentence, though.
Yeah, but not “Ford’s”. I drive a Ford Escort. It was made by Ford, not Ford’s.
I’m not denying the general trend, simply this particular instance.
Which, of course, is largely irrelevant, since, as I realised typing the previous post, the real company name isn’t Ford.
So perhaps I should have just kept out of the whole thing. :smack:
I don’t know what you mean by that. Of course the company’s name really is “Ford.” Yes, the principal corporate entity that oversees the company’s operations is legally designated “Ford Motor Co.,” but “Ford” is just as real as any other name. That’s the name that most people use. That’s the name that appears on the company’s products. That’s the name that the company uses to refer to itself in its advertising and promotion. So, yes, “Ford” is a real name for the company.
The thing that feels so wrong about it is that you’re not consistent: the language used around collective nouns treats them both as singular and plural at times. For example, “Manchester United are a football team.” Where did that “a” come from if “football team” is plural? It doesn’t make logical sense.
And personally, I find it weird because it seems to be the result of a failure to think abstractly: a collection of things is, itself, a singular thing. That bag of marbles … is heavy. That pile of leaves … is wet. That group of people … is angry. You’re speaking about the collection as a whole, not the things in the collection. If you’d want to speak about the things themselves, you’d say “those people are angry,” “those leaves are wet”, or “those marbles are heavy.”
I’d say “that group of people are angry” sounds wrong to my ear but not ridiculously so (it irritates me but I acknowledge the flawed reasoning that permits it). “That bag of marbles are heavy” is clearly absurd, right? Marbles are not, in fact, heavy… But a large enough bag of them is. How about “that pile of leaves are wet?” You also didn’t object directly to wolfman’s intentionally-silly example of himself as a collection of body parts, but I assume that you were just ignoring it in favor of the joking response and that it doesn’t actually sound right to you, correct? It seems like there’s a line to be drawn where collections on one side are singular but collections on the other are plural.
:smack:
:slinks off, barbarously:
Switch to Firefox, which has a built-in spellchecker.
Which would you say in these cases?:
-
The Toronto Maple Leafs are a hockey team
-
The Toronto Maple Leafs is a hockey team
-
The Gunners are a football team
-
The Gunners is a football team
To me, there’s an omitted/implied “club” in there:
The Toronto Maple Leafs [club] is a hockey team.
The Gunners [club] is a football team.