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Moore

Joined: 25 Aug 2004 Posts: 730 Location: Madrid
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Posted: Thu Feb 24, 2005 10:58 pm Post subject: Football team: singular or plural? |
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Can you say... "United goes through to the next round", or does it have to be "United go through..". "Lincoln wins at home" or must it be "Lincoln win at home" ?
Can you ever refer to a football team as singular, or must it be plural. Here in Spain a team is singular, wheras as far as I can gather in the UK it is plural. Is it like the word "government" which can be singular or plural, depending on how you look at it...or am I wrong about that too?
Any ideas? |
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matttheboy

Joined: 01 Jul 2003 Posts: 854 Location: Valparaiso, Chile
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Posted: Thu Feb 24, 2005 11:40 pm Post subject: |
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Collective noun? Or have i just made that up? The team is singular but made up of many individuals so it can be both...maybe...
When it comes to my team (work it out from my avatar) i'd say 'we' which is something that doesn't happen in any other language that i know of. |
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matttheboy

Joined: 01 Jul 2003 Posts: 854 Location: Valparaiso, Chile
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Posted: Thu Feb 24, 2005 11:47 pm Post subject: |
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Probably should have done this in the first place, got up off my ar se and just checked but i just couldn't be bothered...until 2 minutes later and it started to annoy me.
Just checked in parrott's 'grammar for english language teachers'.
"Collective nouns are words which represent groups of people, e.g. 'the team'...These nouns are singular in that we can talk about them 'an awful team' (wolves).
People sometimes choose either singular or plural verb forms according to whether they are thinking of a unified 'body' or of the various people who make it up.
'The army provides an excellent career'
'The army are investigating the incident' "
Guess i was pretty much right! |
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guty

Joined: 10 Apr 2003 Posts: 365 Location: on holiday
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Posted: Fri Feb 25, 2005 3:43 am Post subject: |
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I think there is also a British/US thing there.
I think the US has (have?) always referred to teams as singular,
Boston plays NY, Dallas wins superbowl
in the UK until recently (mid 90s) they were plural,
Liverpool win UEFA, United draw
but increasingly are turning singular, a quick check gives UK newspapers not far off a 50/50 split.
Sounds strange to me with an "s", but thats progress (stress on 1st, or 2nd syllable?) |
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Captain Yossarian
Joined: 05 May 2004 Posts: 385 Location: Dongbei
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Posted: Fri Feb 25, 2005 10:43 am Post subject: |
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A classic US/British Team.
British English:
Spain are always failing in important games.
US English:
England is getting worse and worse under Eriksson. |
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dmb

Joined: 12 Feb 2003 Posts: 8397
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Posted: Fri Feb 25, 2005 11:03 am Post subject: |
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Man U are hated by alot of people.
Man U is hated by alot of people.
Both seem ok to me. |
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basiltherat
Joined: 04 Oct 2003 Posts: 952
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Posted: Fri Feb 25, 2005 11:36 am Post subject: |
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Colchester United (as a team of playing individuals) s uck.
Colchester United (as an organisation/club) is cheap to buy.
Just a gut feeling
basil
Go U's !  |
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Guy Courchesne

Joined: 10 Mar 2003 Posts: 9650 Location: Mexico City
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Posted: Fri Feb 25, 2005 12:53 pm Post subject: |
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Good set of threads here on US vs British English. I'm realizing that my own Canadian English is far closer to the US version than British.
Last edited by Guy Courchesne on Fri Feb 25, 2005 6:02 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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Sadken

Joined: 11 Aug 2004 Posts: 341
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Posted: Fri Feb 25, 2005 5:52 pm Post subject: |
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Always say "United go through", although with Roy Carroll between the sticks, who knows?
Similar thing seems to happen with band names. We (Bulldog spirited Brits) would always say "Daft Punk are playing in my house" whereas, the new LCD Soundsystem single is called "Daft Punk is playing at my house. Like my man matttheboy says, "it's all about collective nouns, baby" although I may be paraphrasing somewhat. |
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matttheboy

Joined: 01 Jul 2003 Posts: 854 Location: Valparaiso, Chile
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Posted: Fri Feb 25, 2005 7:23 pm Post subject: |
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dmb wrote: |
Man U are hated by alot of people.
Man U is hated by alot of people.
Both seem ok to me. |
Of course the proper sentence is:
"Manure hated by a lot of people." |
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dmb

Joined: 12 Feb 2003 Posts: 8397
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Posted: Sat Feb 26, 2005 9:22 am Post subject: |
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Mattheboy, why must Wolves be destroyed? |
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carnac
Joined: 30 Jul 2004 Posts: 310 Location: in my village in Oman ;-)
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Posted: Sat Feb 26, 2005 10:48 am Post subject: |
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Yup, it's a classic British/American thing.
In AE, something like a team or a corporation is viewed as an impersonal singular entity. "The team is doing well". "IBM has announced...", both regarded as an "it". BE looks at the individuals who comprise the entity and pluralizes (pluralises) to account for the multiple humans who comprise (comprize?) the entity. "BA have announced..", etc. making a team or corporation a "they".
I tell my students that if they choose one or the other form in their writing, it's fine as long as they remain consistent throughout. If they write "BA have bought new airplanes", then they must treat "learn" and "burn" as irregular verbs, rather than the regularised (regularized) form.
Is knowing the two forms a sort of bilingualism? A demi-bilingialism? Or is demi-bilingualism monolingualism?  |
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carnac
Joined: 30 Jul 2004 Posts: 310 Location: in my village in Oman ;-)
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Posted: Sat Feb 26, 2005 10:50 am Post subject: |
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or maybe quasihemidemisemibilingualism? |
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sickbag

Joined: 10 Jan 2005 Posts: 155 Location: Blighty
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Posted: Sun Feb 27, 2005 10:58 pm Post subject: |
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dmb wrote: |
Mattheboy, why must Wolves be destroyed? |
I'm guessing he's a West Brom fan.
Matttheboy - I was at the Hawthorns last week and you were lucky.
Do you get to see much footy in Argentina?
Come On You Saints! |
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matttheboy

Joined: 01 Jul 2003 Posts: 854 Location: Valparaiso, Chile
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Posted: Sun Feb 27, 2005 11:16 pm Post subject: |
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Yeah i'm a baggie, listened to the game over the 'net, sounded like a pretty dire game...looks like we'll both have a chance to destroy the dingles next year...St Mary's will soon be entertaning rotherham and burnley and your closest local derby will probably brighton-looking forward to it??
Loads of footy over here in argentina, 2 live games saturday, the sunday and monday games live, FA cup on ESPN and champions league as well...plus Copa Libertador and the Argie league...i timetable my classes around the games-'Oh, sorry i've got an important meeting this time next week. Can we move the class forward an hour, please?'  |
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