Re: USAGE: THEORY/USAGE: irregular English plurals (was: RE:

Nik Taylor writes:
 > And Rosta wrote:
 > > It's a well-known American/Non-American difference. Is it totally
 > > out in your dialect, or merely more marked?
 >
 > I can't speak for John, but for me "the team are" is as ungrammatical as
 > "the man are"
 >

It doesn't really add any new information, (beyond confirming And's
statement that it's a well known difference) but I came across the
following mention of this phenomenon just a day or so ago, and I
thought I'd share it.

From _A Student's Grammar of the English Language_ (Greenbaum & Quirk,
1990)

Chapter 1 - The English Language, heading 'Varieties of English',
subheading 'National Standards of English', subsubheading 'British and
American English'.

!What we are calling national standards should be seen as distinct from
!the standard English which we have beeen discussing and which we
!should think of as being supranational, embracing what is common to
!all.  Again, as with orthography, there are two national standards
!that are overwhelmingly predominant both in the number of distinctive
!usages and in the degree to which these differences are
!institutionalized: American English <AmE> and British English <BrE>.
!Grammatical differences are few and the most conspicuous are known to
!many users of both national standards: the fact that AmE has two past
!participles for get and BrE only one, for example and that in BrE
!either a singular or a plural verb may be used with a singular
!collective noun:
!
!                     / is  \
!     The government {       } in favour of economic sanctions.
!                     \ are /
!
!whereas in AmE a singular verb is required here.