Job Discussion Forums

Moore · Joined: 25 Aug 2004 Posts: 730 Location: Madrid

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?

matttheboy · Joined: 01 Jul 2003 Posts: 854 Location: Valparaiso, Chile

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.

matttheboy · Joined: 01 Jul 2003 Posts: 854 Location: Valparaiso, Chile

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!

guty · Joined: 10 Apr 2003 Posts: 365 Location: on holiday

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?)

Captain Yossarian · Joined: 05 May 2004 Posts: 385 Location: Dongbei

A classic US/British Team.

British English:

Spain are always failing in important games.

US English:

England is getting worse and worse under Eriksson.

dmb · Joined: 12 Feb 2003 Posts: 8397

Man U are hated by alot of people.
Man U is hated by alot of people.
Both seem ok to me.

basiltherat · Joined: 04 Oct 2003 Posts: 952

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 ! Smile

Guy Courchesne · Joined: 10 Mar 2003 Posts: 9650 Location: Mexico City

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.

Sadken · Joined: 11 Aug 2004 Posts: 341

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.

matttheboy · Joined: 01 Jul 2003 Posts: 854 Location: Valparaiso, Chile

dmb · Joined: 12 Feb 2003 Posts: 8397

Mattheboy, why must Wolves be destroyed?

carnac · Posted: Sat Feb 26, 2005 10:48 am Post subject:

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? Very Happy

carnac · Posted: Sat Feb 26, 2005 10:50 am Post subject:

or maybe quasihemidemisemibilingualism?

sickbag · Joined: 10 Jan 2005 Posts: 155 Location: Blighty

matttheboy · Joined: 01 Jul 2003 Posts: 854 Location: Valparaiso, Chile

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?? Very Happy

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?' Cool