Re:The Most Shocking Result in World Cup History
by StavrosK on Wednesday July 09, 2014 @04:41AM
(#8008644)
I'm guessing you're from the UK? This isn't specific to teams. Any group is referred to in the plural in the UK and the singular in the US. For example, "the police is" vs "the police are".
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Re:The Most Shocking Result in World Cup History
by noahc on Thursday July 10, 2014 @08:57AM
(#8014770)
I'm from the midwest (USA) and I'm not sure what the rule is but here is how I would say it.
The City Council is … The class is … The police are … The firefighters are …
The phrase "the police is" sounds so foreign to me, that I am almost certain I've never heard nor said it.
Re:The Most Shocking Result in World Cup History
by tesseract on Wednesday July 09, 2014 @04:52AM
(#8008684)
Right, and as an American when I read British English it's not the use of "their" vs "its" that strikes me as 'foreign', it's the fact that as you point out, the names of groups take plural verbs in British and singular verbs in American usage.
Re:The Most Shocking Result in World Cup History
by mikegriff on Wednesday July 09, 2014 @05:54AM
(#8008829)
Almost, I'm from Ireland.
I hadn't noticed the wider use of singular groups previously, but that does make sense when you point it out. I suppose it was just more obvious because we rarely see american analysis of football outside of the world cup.