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Suntzu
Joined: 14 Mar 2004
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 Posted: Wed Jan 05, 2005 12:50 pm Post subject: Good grammar question |
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A Teoic teacher I know gave me this problem.
Proctor and Gamble (is/are) one of the leading companies that test their products on animals. Can you explain why you use is or are?
Don and Don inc, (have/has) recently joined the program.
Can you explain why we should use have or has.
Thanks folks! |
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Wangja
Joined: 17 May 2004
Location: Seoul, Yongsan
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| Posted: Wed Jan 05, 2005 1:18 pm Post subject: |
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Now, I've already told you this  see my earlier post about English rooolz ... http://www.eslcafe.com/forums/korea/viewtopic.php?t=31820
1. Verbs HAS to agree with their subjects.
"Proctor and Gamble" and "Don & Don" Inc are both companies and singular. |
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jinks
Joined: 27 Oct 2004
Location: Formerly: Lower North Island
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| Posted: Wed Jan 05, 2005 1:54 pm Post subject: |
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Is/are
Exactly as Wangja says: you can substitute both P&G and D&D with the word 'company' - thus singular. Another thorny one for you to think about is the saying 'the family are coming for Xmas'. Techinically it should be 'the family is...', but when we think of our own 'family' we think of all our individual relations, thus plural. Perhaps that's why you often hear modifiers tagged on like 'All the family are coming...' |
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jinks
Joined: 27 Oct 2004
Location: Formerly: Lower North Island
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| Posted: Wed Jan 05, 2005 1:56 pm Post subject: |
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| sorry about the double post, but I just got the joke about verbs and subjects agreeing. It was a joke? wasn't it? |
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Suntzu
Joined: 14 Mar 2004
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| Posted: Wed Jan 05, 2005 4:04 pm Post subject: Thanks for the reply |
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| Thanks for the reply, I agree with your answers. It's amazing how often this is mis-used in English. The TEOIC teacher pointed out several examples from newspapers which used both singular and plural have/ has. |
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Rather_Dashing
Joined: 07 Sep 2004
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| Posted: Wed Jan 05, 2005 5:51 pm Post subject: |
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Exactly, it's "is".
The only thing that really bugs me in english is "are" when talking about the media, and data. I usually say the media is doing this, not the media are doing this; or the data is saying this, not the data are saying this. It annoys the hell out of me but apparently, you're supposed to use "are"  |
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Wangja
Joined: 17 May 2004
Location: Seoul, Yongsan
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| Posted: Wed Jan 05, 2005 5:55 pm Post subject: |
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That damned Latin, creeps in everywhere ...
And as for Greek .... my special affection goes out to criterion/a |
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visviva
Joined: 03 Feb 2003
Location: Daegu
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| Posted: Thu Jan 06, 2005 12:49 am Post subject: |
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| Quote: |
| Proctor and Gamble (is/are) one of the leading companies that test their products on animals. |
Although I agree with the other posters that the singular form is better, in this case it clashes quite glaringly with the rest of the sentence, which treats the company as plural. That's monstrous style, and horrible grammar. Given that the test-item format doesn't allow one to rewrite the whole sentence, I think "are" is the best choice (although that's probably the kind of thinking that would have me flunking the TOEIC).
considering further...
Collective nouns are ambiguous in terms of number -- i.e., in English it's just as proper to say "the mob are attacking the castle" as "the mob is attacking the castle." People from different areas and backgrounds have different preferences, but both plural and singular usages are common even among respectable folks. So if we grant that a company name can be a collective noun (referring to the employees or divisions of the company), we must accept that there is no clear rule for whether it should be treated as plural or singular.
In that case the only clues we have come from the sentences provided. In the first there are clear contextual clues that the noun is treated as plural. In the second, the company appears to be treated as a unit, therefore the singular interpretation ("has") is better.
Here's a website that agrees with me, at least for American usage: http://www.learnenglish.org.uk/grammar/archive/collective_nouns.html
[/b] |
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d503
Joined: 16 Oct 2004
Location: Daecheong, Seoul
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| Posted: Thu Jan 06, 2005 1:38 am Post subject: |
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| Rather_Dashing wrote: |
Exactly, it's "is".
The only thing that really bugs me in english is "are" when talking about the media, and data. I usually say the media is doing this, not the media are doing this; or the data is saying this, not the data are saying this. It annoys the hell out of me but apparently, you're supposed to use "are" |
I just read somewhere that it is okay no in English to say "data is" and "media is" because they now have new plural forms datas and medias. Though who uses them I don't know. |
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jinks
Joined: 27 Oct 2004
Location: Formerly: Lower North Island
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| Posted: Thu Jan 06, 2005 7:03 pm Post subject: |
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| visviva wrote: |
| Quote: |
| Proctor and Gamble (is/are) one of the leading companies that test their products on animals. |
Although I agree with the other posters that the singular form is better, in this case it clashes quite glaringly with the rest of the sentence, which treats the company as plural. That's monstrous style, and horrible grammar. Given that the test-item format doesn't allow one to rewrite the whole sentence, I think "are" is the best choice [/b] |
The use of 'their' as a singular pronoun is a fudgy way (I think) of avoiding inappropriate gender-specific language - using 'their' instead of the un-pc 'his / he' or clumsy 'his or her / he or she'
But you are right, in this sentence it is just plain wrong, and I didn't pick up on it when I first read the post. |
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turtlepi1
Joined: 15 Jun 2004
Location: Abu Dhabi, UAE
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| Posted: Thu Jan 06, 2005 9:40 pm Post subject: |
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| jinks wrote: |
| visviva wrote: |
| Quote: |
| Proctor and Gamble (is/are) one of the leading companies that test their products on animals. |
Although I agree with the other posters that the singular form is better, in this case it clashes quite glaringly with the rest of the sentence, which treats the company as plural. That's monstrous style, and horrible grammar. Given that the test-item format doesn't allow one to rewrite the whole sentence, I think "are" is the best choice [/b] |
The use of 'their' as a singular pronoun is a fudgy way (I think) of avoiding inappropriate gender-specific language - using 'their' instead of the un-pc 'his / he' or clumsy 'his or her / he or she'
But you are right, in this sentence it is just plain wrong, and I didn't pick up on it when I first read the post. |
OK, I've gotta admit something about this argument didn't sit well but I couldn't figure out what...The sentence is either broken or not (according to this argument) based on the use of their.
I think they used their based on one of the leading companies
and I "think" that actually makes it OK. (but I'll admit I read it too many times to be objective at this point.) |
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