I’m sure I’m not the only one to have noticed that the British tend to treat the proper name of a group as plural even if the name itself isn’t plural, whereas Americans always treat a singular as a singular. Example:
Liverpudlian: The Labour Party are in the majority.
Detroiter: The Democratic Party is in the majority.
Is this a legitimate difference between American English and the Queen’s English? Being an American, I tend to find the singular more natural; the plural sounds snooty.
And what’s with Americans who insist on using the British/plural form when they talk about bands? The next time I hear some Dieter wannabe in a black turtleneck say “Pink Floyd are my favorite '70s band” in a Podunk accent, I’m gonna puke. Maybe this last paragraph belongs in the Pit.
I notice this quite a lot when I listen to, say, CNN sport bulletins, eg “…and Manchester United is beaten…” huh? Manchester United is a collection of players, a team, and are therefore referred to as any group, ie in the plural. Or that’s the way it seems to me, but as a limey, what the hell would I know?
I’m not up on my UK football naming conventions, but that doesn’t seem incorrect to me. In a US sports wrapup, for instance, the sportscaster could say that Cleveland was beaten, or that the Cleveland Indians were beaten. Although in that case, it seems that the parallel construction would be that Manchester was, but Manchester United were. Huh.
In England, as you learn from listening to either BBC or to Sky Sports (I watch a LOT of football ), a team is referred to as a group of individuals always, regardless of how the reference is made. Thus, where we would say in the U.S. “Chicago has failed to make the World Series, again,” the English would say “Wimbledon are going down after years in the top flight.”
Of these two constructions, arguably the American usage is the most difficult to defend, for it acts as if “Chicago” is shorthand for “the Chicago team”, a singular noun, or for “Chicago, the city”, which isn’t really true (the City doesn’t play games, well, not in a sports league anyway). The English construction recognizes that “Chicago” means “the Chicago Cubs” which anyone would understand to be a plural noun, as recognized by the fact the team’s name is pluralized.
All of which makes one wonder what you do about singular team names, like the Chicago Fire…
Liverpudlian? You don’t want to be saying that if you come visit our sceptered Isle… We’ll all know you’re a tourist and take advantage of you… Scouser or Scally… You’ll get away with it.
A group is a singular item, although made up of many (Manchester United is full of individual nonces, but ok, I accept they are pretty darned good). Therefore the rule in English english, is that Manchester United is a top team. Not Man Utd are a good team.
However, the English being what we are, we can’t even speak our own language and tend to speak it all wrong.
You septics actually have the correct ruling for a change ( ref Colour, labour etc.)
The Republican party nominated Dubya to run for prez.
The Democrats are nominating Al Gore.
The Atlanta Braves (they) won the World Series in 1995.
Atlanta (it) won . . . in 1995.
The difficult thing with the Manchester United example is there’s no “the” . . . we usually say THE City Nameofteam were beaten, not City Nameofteam were beaten. I think that’s more of a Euro (British) thing.
May I reply as a Dutch guy for who English is only his second language and has no right to speak really?
According to logical grammar, the team is singular. ‘Teams’ is plural. Therefore, it would be logical to say the ‘the team was beaten’, and ‘the teams were beaten’.
Take this one step further, giving a locality to such a team doesn’t make it plural. It is still one Chicago team. So, ‘the Chigaco team is beaten’.
In the same vein: the United States have a new president. The United Kingdom is gramatically wrong in this case.
Perhaps ‘Democrats’ is read as a lot of individuals, try it as the Democrat party… The same works if you say Republicans as opposed to the Republican party.
If we use Manchester… Manchester WAS beaten (usually by Fulham FC…, I can dream!!!) Manchester Utd Was Beaten.
Braves? In an ideal world, the team SHOULD be regarded as singular. Don’t be confused by the s making it sound plural. However, English is becoming more aesthetic and I guess it would follow that if you throw an s to pluralise a word, it would become plural in its treatment.
It looks like the answer’s yes. The American usage reflects the fact that the noun is singular and the British usage reflects the fact that the verb refers to a group of people. The advantage of the British usage is that it distinguishes implicitly between the team and the place:
“Engalnd are attacking the French with everything they’ve got” is a piece of football commentary. “England is attacking the French with everything it’s got” is a piece of war reporting.
), a team is referred to as a group of individuals always, regardless of how the reference is made. Thus, where we would say in the U.S. “Chicago has failed to make the World Series, again,” the English would say “Wimbledon are going down after years in the top flight.”