Prompt Proofing Blog Post: Subject/Verb Agreement with Collective Nouns

    VANCOUVER, BC, March 02, 2012 /24-7PressRelease/ -- Subject/verb agreement, and subject/pronoun agreement are arguably the most common errors we come across when proofreading or editing. This is particularly true with collective nouns. The following are some frequently observed examples:

- The team play better when they have a home crowd.

- The choir sing every Sunday.

- The committee pledge to prioritize their goals.

Not only do we have the plural form of the verb, in the first and third sentences we also see the use of the pronoun 'they' or 'their'. Yet 'team', 'choir' and 'committee' are collective nouns; yes, there may be many people in the team but the noun itself is singular. The grammatically correct version of these sentences is written below:

- The team plays better when it has a home crowd.

- The choir sings every Sunday.

- The committee pledges to prioritize their goals.

Sometimes, however, we may use the collective noun to describe the individual members of a particular group. Consider:

- The team are going to be fitted with their new uniforms.

- The committee are reminded to collect their name tags before the meeting.

In these examples, the individual members of each group are being referred to; each member of the team must be fitted for their own uniform individually, each member of the committee must collect a name tag. To use the singular in these examples would be inappropriate. Consider:

- The team is going to be fitted with its new uniforms.

That is clearly incorrect and it may well be preferable to clarify these examples by including the word 'members' thus:

- The team members are going to be fitted with their new uniforms.

- All committee members are reminded to collect their name tags before the meeting.

However, if the collective noun is referring to the entire group, collectively - use a singular verb and a singular pronoun thus:

- An army marches on its stomach.

- The jury returned its verdict.

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