The team are - Collective nouns in British English

'Our team are playing really well today'

That sentence is absolutely standard in British English, but unusual, 'ungrammatical' even, to American ears. The word team denotes a group of people, and is usually referred to as a collective noun. The standard position amongst grammarians and usage guide writers is that you can use either a singular or plural verb with a collective noun.

There is a difference, however, between American and British usage. While Americans will practically always use a singular verb, British speakers will often use a plural verb, something some people find hard to accept.

During the course of a (let's say lively) discussion on this topic on a language forum, I collected quite a lot of quotes from, and links to, various grammar books, style guides and commentators on English, so I thought it might be useful to gather them all here.

In no sense am I trying to persuade people to use plural verbs with collective nouns: that is your choice. My aim here is just to try and convince people that this usage has a long history and is entirely legitimate.

Some random thoughts about -ise and -ize verbs in British English.

As a change from writing grammar exercises for foreign students, I've decided with this post to make a small contribution to the debate on the position of -ise/-ize verbs in Britain. It is rather long and quite detailed, and illustrated with lots of examples.

Britishisms

A year or so ago, the BBC website published a rather silly article, where they invited readers to write in with the Americanisms which annoyed them most. The BBC published these without any comment, causing a bit of a stir in the (mostly American) linguistics blogosphere. In fact it turned out that many of these 'pet peeves' that people sent in weren't even Americanisms at all, and of the five examples the journalist had opened the article with, only one hadn't started life in Britain.

Perhaps in an attempt to redress the balance slightly, the BBC have recently published an article about Britishisms (also known as Briticisms) that have been creeping into use in North America, and invited American readers to send in examples of Britishisms they had noticed being used. Thirty of these were then published in a follow-up article, with definitions from Oxford English and Collins dictionaries.

Note - a lot of these words are informal or colloquial, and one is downright rude (in the sexual sense), or as one dictionary has it - 'vulgar', and another 'taboo, slang'. But none of them are particularly nasty. Try your hand at using them with four short exercises.

A British perspective on further or farther

The question of further vs farther is a popular topic on grammar websites and has been discussed often enough on sites like GrammarGirl, so why should it need anything more said about it?

Because firstly, nearly all these websites are American, and the British 'take' on this question is somewhat different. And secondly, they nearly all put forward a so-called 'rule' which is by no means universally accepted.

Some random August ramblings

In Britain, August is known in the media world as the silly season. Politicians and business people etc are away on holiday, but journalists still have to find something to write about. The result is that newspapers are full of silly stories which wouldn't see the light of day at other times of the year.

It's a bit the same in my teaching world. Most of my students are away on holiday, so I have a bit of time to fill this blog with 'silly stories'. Anyway, what's the point of having a blog if you can't spout off occasionally? Here are a few things I've noticed recently on the blogosphere.

Top Ten British Words (according to Merriam-Webster)

Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary has (AmE) / have (BrE) put together their favourite (BrE) / favorite (AmE) ten British words, and I thought they might be worth a little exercise.

Merriam-Webster are (BrE) / is (AmE) one of the best-known American publishers of dictionaries, and direct heir(s) of Noah Webster, whose An American Dictionary of the English Language was first published in 1828. It was Noah Webster who established the American system of spelling.

I have to admit I didn't realise they were all British. And one of them, chunter, was completely new to me.

Have a look at their definitions here first, then do the exercise. I've also added some of my own (not necessarily British); mouse over the words in blue for their definitions.

It's a boy!

Transatlantic pronoun problems

I was writing some example sentences for my post on lay and lie, when I wrote this sentence:

She wrapped the baby up and laid it in its cot.

Then I remembered a post I'd read recently on the excellent language blog Separated by a common language. The blogger is an American linguist, who is currently working at a British university and writes about the differences between British and American English. And the penny has just dropped that Lynne Guist is not in fact her real name. What an idiot I am!

Anyway apparently it's quite normal for Brits to call very young babies it, as I had done there without even thinking, and Americans find this somewhat shocking. So, not wanting to offend anyone's sensibilities, I changed it to him and its to his.

Then for some light relief from 'lay and lie', which was involving quite a lot of work, I 'popped over' to 'Newsroom 101' to do a quiz or two, as you do. Newsroom 101 is not run by Associated Press, but has lots of quizzes based on Associated Press rules. I don't take them too seriously, but it's quite fun trying to guess how their minds work. Well, I came across these sentences: