Cato's Grammar Grumble

[karlhenning]

Right....but my initial comment remains.

Yes, your concern that Bill Gates and MondoSoft don't twig collective nouns remains unaddressed.

[Scarpia]

Right....but my initial comment remains.

Mike

I'm afraid I agree with Microsoft.  I put these four sentences into Word and got the following result:

Your staff are incompetent. [flagged as wrong]
Your staff is incompetent.
Your people are incompetent.
Your people is incompetent. [flagged as wrong]

So word recognizes a collective noun (people).   But to my ear "staff" is a singular, it refers to the entity not to the members of the entity collectively. 

For instance, if I were referring to my favorite football team, would I say "my team is the best" or "my team are the best"?  It seems clear to me that my team is the best, and the same for my staff.

[karlhenning]

I'm afraid I agree with Microsoft.  I put these four sentences into Word and got the following result:

Your staff are incompetent. [flagged as wrong]
Your staff is incompetent.
Your people are incompetent.
Your people is incompetent. [flagged as wrong]

So word recognizes a collective noun (people).   But to my ear "staff" is a singular . . . .

The committee are discussing possible improvements to your ear.

[Scarpia]

The committee are discussing possible improvements to your ear.

Actually I can be reconciled to either one.  I googled the phrase "the staff is here" and "the staff are here" (important to include quotes) and both gave a roughly equal number of hits, which suggests that usage is evenly split.


I found this on a web site called grammar book

Rule 14.     Collective nouns such as team and staff  may be either singular or plural depending on their use in the sentence.
Examples:

The staff is in a meeting.
Staff is acting as a unit here.

The staff are in disagreement about the findings.
The staff are acting as separate individuals in this example.

The sentence would read even better as:
The staff members are in disagreement about the findings.

http://www.grammarbook.com/grammar/subjectVerbAgree.asp

[knight66]

I wonder if this is an English-English usage.

I have never, ever encountered staff when used in a plural form and referring to people being treated as a singular noun. I understand your argument, but it may I guess act like sheep and sheep, singular and plural respectively depending upon the context.

But you would not say, three of your sheep is dead, nor would you say three of your staff is dead.

Mike

[karlhenning]

Examples:

The staff is in a meeting.
Staff is acting as a unit here.

The staff are in disagreement about the findings.
The staff are acting as separate individuals in this example.

That's the idea.

The sentence would read even better as:
The staff members are in disagreement about the findings.

Well, that's an opinion.  My ear thinks that "The staff are in disagreement about the findings" reads just fine, thank you very much ; )

[secondwind]

I wonder if this is an English-English usage.

I have never, ever encountered staff when used in a plural form and referring to people being treated as a singular noun. I understand your argument, but it may I guess act like sheep and sheep, singular and plural respectively depending upon the context.

But you would not say, three of your sheep is dead, nor would you say three of your staff is dead.

Mike

Yes, I think this is one of those pesky English usage versus American usage issues.  In American English, a collective noun, like "staff" or "committee", is usually followed by a singular verb.  I think that English usage is the opposite.  Bill Gates should put out a U.K. "proper English" version!  In the meantime, the grammar checker would have been more helpful if it had suggested the singular verb, which would be the correct American usage.

Scarpia, my dictionary insists that the plural of "staff" is "staves" where the meaning is either those funny lines musicians use or a big wooden cudgel or something like that.  Where "staff" means a group of people who work for you or under your supervision, the plural given is "staffs".  Sometimes dictionaries are like doctors--consult two, get three opinions. 

"People", of course, is not a collective noun, but the plural of "person".

"Sheep" is what we call a "count noun", which can be either singular or plural ("a sheep", "three sheep", or "the sheep"), as opposed to a  "non-count noun" like "air" or "rice", which is always treated as singular, no matter how much stuff it describes. 

[Scarpia]

"People", of course, is not a collective noun, but the plural of "person".

The plural of person is persons.  People is a distinct word, derived from a different Latin root, at least according to Webster's dictionary. 

Also according to Websters, the plural of staff (i.e., the hospital staff) is staffs, the plural of staff (a stick) is staffs (current American usage) or staves (Brittish usage).

[secondwind]

In the etymological sense, "persons" is the correct plural of "person." In current usage, however, "persons" is usually reserved for very particular legal and theological meanings, and in all other cases the plural of "person" will be rendered as "people".  To confuse matter further, "people" can be used both as a singular and a plural, as in "this is a people that loves to dance" and "these people are scary" and in addition can be pluralized to "peoples", as in "the peoples of the ancient world".  What a fun language!

I am surprised that your Websters describes "staves" as a British spelling.  Perhaps it is newer than my dictionaries and so indicates further divergence of American English from British English.

[Scarpia]

in all other cases the plural of "person" will be rendered as "people".

People is not the plural of person.   To say that people is the plural of person is like saying that "army" is the plural of "soldier."  People may be a synonym for persons, but it is a different word, even if they both start with a 'p.'  Person is derived from the latin "persona," which literally refers to a mask, and people derives from the latin "populus."

[Cato]

Just incredible!  So what did the local Blondie Bubblebrain say today on the morning TV news?

"Coming up, how a family was terrified when a bullet teared through their house!"

Which she pronounced "tared"  !

So...was she trying to make a joke with "terrified" maybe?

Since these things are usually scripted, I do wonder whether the writer was having some fun!

[matti]

Just incredible!  So what did the local Blondie Bubblebrain say today on the morning TV news?

"Coming up, how a family was terrified when a bullet teared through their house!"

Which she pronounced "tared"  !

So...was she trying to make a joke with "terrified" maybe?

Since these things are usually scripted, I do wonder whether the writer was having some fun!

What's funny? Would you mind explaining to a furriner?

[Cato]

What's funny? Would you mind explaining to a furriner?

Sure:

tear - tore - has torn - Irregular (Strong) Verb

The reporter did not know her basic verb forms!  It would be similar to saying "He goed" for "He went."   0:)

[Egebedieff]

What's funny? Would you mind explaining to a furriner?

What's funny is that Cato feels a need to seize on other people's venial grammatical errors and advertise them to the forum and then, on such skimpy evidence, to make broader assessments  about the person's intelligence. There is a popular expression for such prescriptive grammarians.

In this case, a woman, perhaps in a moment of divided attention, failed to observe that the word "tear" is part of that small class of strong verbs, for which the past tense is not formed by adding "-ed."

Although, if he brought this error to her attention, I wonder if she would get squirmy and say that this is a rule that she doesn't choose to observe. Probably not.
'

[Egebedieff]

What's funny is that Cato feels a need to seize on other people's venial grammatical errors and advertise them to the forum and then, on such skimpy evidence, to make broader assessments  about the person's intelligence.

A small retraction. That isn't really all that funny.
'

[greg]

Cato, you'd probably hate to be in my position- remember that girl you asked me if I had married yet? Yesterday,  she asked me, "Where are you at?" over my walkie talkie at work.

Normally, it doesn't bother me, but I felt like either correcting her- "You mean, 'Where are you'," or saying, "In your mom's bed, b****." Well, I would say that, except the managers also have walkie talkies. 

Maybe Cato's influence is rubbing off on me...

[Cato]

A small retraction. That isn't really all that funny.
'

I have previously given other mistakes from this character: allow me to explain "Blondie Bubblebrain" as a reference to the Don Henley song Dirty Laundry, which criticized the shallowness of TV news. 

In the song, he uses the phrase "the bubble-headed bleached blonde" to describe the anchor.

And the most relevant line from the song for our purposes here:

"I just have to look good, I don't need to be clear!"

[Egebedieff]

I have previously given other mistakes from this character: allow me to explain "Blondie Bubblebrain" as a reference to the Don Henley song Dirty Laundry, which criticized the shallowness of TV news. 

In the song, he uses the phrase "the bubble-headed bleached blonde" to describe the anchor.

And the most relevant line from the song for our purposes here:

"I just have to look good, I don't need to be clear!"

Perhaps it is just the enthusiasm with which you perform your service that forms an impression.'

[Cato]

Cato, you'd probably hate to be in my position- remember that girl you asked me if I had married yet? Yesterday,  she asked me, "Where are you at?" over my walkie talkie at work.

Normally, it doesn't bother me, but I felt like either correcting her- "You mean, 'Where are you'," or saying, "In your mom's bed, b****." Well, I would say that, except the managers also have walkie talkies. 

Maybe Cato's influence is rubbing off on me...

Be polite!   0:)   Cato might use euphemistic insults like Blondie Bubblebrain, but would never use the "b-word" to which you refer.

Although your rejoinder, while cheap and too easy, does retain its humor...for me at least!   

I had a Precious Blood sister who hated "Where...at " and while annoying, there is a Germanic tendency in the expression, possibly influenced by parallels from "Wo...hin"  (Where...to) and "Wo...her" (Where...from).

To be sure, German would simply use "Wo" for "Where" and would not add an "at."

One more comment on Mr. Apostrophe's grumble: as a teacher I combat daily in my classroom the increasingly poor English heard on television.  With so much influence, TV people should be more aware of this responsibility.  Unfortunately, they seem not to care most of the time, and the anchorwoman in question is a multiple offender.

[greg]

Well, I wouldn't really use the word (nor do I ever).  0:) (angel emoticon) I just typed it, since it seemed to go good together.
That would be strange to if the explanation to that was the German influence. I could say, "Stop being so German!" but then I'd have to explain, and I'm too lazy for that.