{"id":599,"date":"2010-08-10T14:47:52","date_gmt":"2010-08-10T20:47:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/?p=599"},"modified":"2021-08-05T10:02:02","modified_gmt":"2021-08-05T15:02:02","slug":"subject-and-verb-agreement-with-collective-nouns","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/singular-vs-plural\/subject-and-verb-agreement-with-collective-nouns\/","title":{"rendered":"Subject and Verb Agreement with Collective Nouns"},"content":{"rendered":"

Do you use a singular or plural verb to match a collective noun such as team<\/em> or staff<\/em>? The answer is, It depends. If these nouns are acting as a unit, use a singular verb.<\/p>\n

Example:<\/strong> The team is heading for practice this afternoon.<\/p>\n

If the sentence indicates more individuality, use a plural verb.<\/p>\n

Example:<\/strong> The team are eating with their families tonight.<\/p>\n

Would you choose is<\/em> or are<\/em> in the example below?<\/p>\n

Example<\/strong> (an actual headline from CNN.com): Nearly one in four people worldwide is\/are Muslim.<\/em><\/p>\n

People<\/em> is NOT a collective noun like team<\/em> or staff<\/em>. It is a plural noun. However, the subject is one<\/em>, which is singular and takes a singular verb. So the answer is is<\/em>. In the above sentence, the prepositional phrase is in four people<\/em>. This means that people<\/em> is the object of the preposition.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s get real here, however: The intention in this headline is to let us know that nearly 25% of the world\u2019s population is Muslim. That intention gets lost by focusing on one is<\/em>. It might be better to reword the sentence: Nearly 25% of people in the world are Muslim.<\/em><\/p>\n

Why is 25% of people are<\/strong><\/em> correct? The subject of this sentence is 25%<\/em>. Fractions and percentages, like team<\/em> and staff<\/em>, can be either singular or plural depending on the object of the preposition following. In this case people<\/em> is the object of the preposition of. We have already said that people<\/em> is plural. Therefore, 25%<\/em> becomes plural in meaning.<\/p>\n

Example:<\/strong> Twelve percent of the building has\/have been renovated.<\/p>\n

The subject is twelve percent<\/em>, which will be either singular or plural depending on the object of the preposition that follows. In this sentence, the object of the preposition is building<\/em>, which is always singular. So the correct answer is has<\/em>.<\/p>\n

To learn more about subject and verb agreement, click here.<\/a><\/p>\n

Ready to challenge yourself?<\/p>\n

Pop Quiz<\/h2>\n

1. The team is\/are headed to the nationals since winning the state finals.<\/p>\n

2. The mock trial team was\/were happy with \/its\/their presentations to the judge.<\/p>\n

3. Nearly 25% of the population is\/are Muslim.<\/p>\n

4. Our staff meets\/meet on Tuesday mornings to discuss customer complaints.<\/p>\n

5. Our staff works\/work hard to meet their goals and deadlines.<\/p>\n

Pop Quiz Answers<\/h2>\n

1. The team is headed to the nationals since winning the state finals.
\nTeam<\/em> is being used as a cohesive unit so a singular verb is required.<\/p>\n

2. The mock trial team was happy with its presentations to the judge.
\nThe singular verb was<\/em> and pronoun its<\/em> are used if the writer intends to convey that team members were generally all happy with the presentations. OR
\nThe mock trial team were happy with their presentations to the judge.
\nThe plural verb were<\/em> and pronoun their<\/em> are used if the writer intends to convey that there were some differences of opinion among the team, but overall they were happy with the presentations.<\/p>\n

3. Nearly 25% of the population is Muslim.
\nThe word population<\/em> is a collective noun that can take either a singular or plural verb, depending on the intention of the author. The intention here is to indicate that this percentage represents a single group.<\/p>\n

4. Our staff meets on Tuesday mornings to discuss customer complaints.
\nStaff<\/em>, a collective noun, is acting as a single unit in this sentence.<\/p>\n

5. Our staff work hard to meet their goals and deadlines.
\nTheir<\/em> is a clue that staff<\/em> is not acting as a unit. Therefore, the plural work is needed.<\/p>\n

How do you know that work<\/em>, not works<\/em>, is plural? Think about which word you would use with he<\/em> and which word you would use with they<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Examples:<\/strong>
\nShe works too hard for her age.
\nThey work harder when the foreman is around.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Do you use a singular or plural verb to match a collective noun such as team or staff? The answer is, It depends. If these nouns are acting as a unit, use a singular verb. Example: The team is heading for practice this afternoon. If the sentence indicates more individuality, use a plural verb. Example: […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[26,43],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-599","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-singular-vs-plural","category-subject-and-verb-agreement"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/599"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=599"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/599\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5298,"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/599\/revisions\/5298"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=599"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=599"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=599"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}