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In British English, it is generally accepted that collective nouns can take either singular or plural verb forms depending on the context and the metonymic shift that it implies. For example, "the team is in the dressing room" ( formal agreement ) refers to the team as an ensemble, while "the team are fighting among themselves" ( notional ...
The collective form is therefore similar in many respects to an English mass noun such as "rice", which in fact refers to a collection of items which are logically countable. However, English has no productive process of forming singulative nouns (just phrases such as "a grain of rice"). Therefore, English cannot be said to have singulative number.
In British English (BrE), collective nouns can take either singular (formal agreement) or plural (notional agreement) verb forms, according to whether the emphasis is on the body as a whole or on the individual members respectively; compare a committee was appointed with the committee were unable to agree.
In the English language, many animals have different names depending on whether they are male, female, young, domesticated, or in groups. The best-known source of many English words used for collective groupings of animals is The Book of Saint Albans , an essay on hunting published in 1486 and attributed to Juliana Berners . [ 1 ]
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Jim had worked for decades as a public school English teacher and taught at aviation camps as an amateur pilot. Anne was in nursing and health care administration. Before Patrick was born, she had even helped run a methadone clinic treating heroin addicts and later had worked in substance abuse and psychiatric wards for the Department of ...