A collective noun is a special type of noun which refers to
a group of people or things. Although
these nouns denote individual members which can be considered as a whole, when
using these we have a choice as to whether we treat the noun as a single entity
grammatically, or as a collection of individuals. Therefore, collective nouns behave differently
from other nouns as they can take a singular or plural pronoun substitute
depending on whether you wish to emphasize the group as a single entity, acting
together, or a number of people or things acting individually. When you have decided whether you will need
to use the singular or plural pronoun, you can then make sure your verb
agrees.
In American English, the singular agreement with pronoun
substitution and verb is more common. In
British English, either singular or plural agreement is acceptable, depending
on the attitude of the writer to the group and the activity being undertaken: is
the group acting in accord, or is there a measure of individuality with the
actions of the group? However, there are
a few collective nouns which always take plural verbs in British English, the
most common being ‘police’ and ‘people’ (http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/words/matching-verbs-to-collective-nouns).
Let’s look at some examples of how the agreement can be
varied with collective nouns according to the attitude being adopted.
The army were unhappy
with the changes to their uniforms.
(Here the writer is considering the individual feelings of the members.
The army was huge. (Here the writer is considering the army as a
single unit.)
The council is meeting
on Friday to consider its response to the consultation. (Here the council is considered as a single,
impersonal entity engaging in a single enterprise to provide a single, collective
response.)
The council are
meeting on Friday to consider their response to the consultation. (In this example, the council is considered as
a group of individual councillors meeting to put forward their individual
opinions and come to an agreement about their response.)
When using collective nouns, it is important to make sure
that the verb is in agreement with any subsequent pronouns. For example, in the sentence ‘The government were
disappointed with public reaction to its
policy.’ Either the singular form of the verb ‘was’ should be used, or the
pronoun ‘its’ should be changed to ‘their’.
The flexibility to take either singular or plural agreement
is extended to collective nouns with a partitive structure (the collective noun
is linked to a plural noun with ‘of’, e.g. a flock of sheep). In the following examples, the first herd
takes the plural, whereas the second takes the singular.
A herd of elephants begin to cross the fast flowing river.
A herd of elephants is called a parade. (Another collective noun is ‘a parade of
elephants’.)
So, singular or plural, context and writer attitude are key!
