John Cowan:
> And Rosta scripsit:
> > As you probably realized after sending that message, analysing these
> > putative bare plurals as mass singulars runs into difficulties with
> > "The lion are scarce today", etc.
>
> Ungrammatical for me.
>
> > You cannot even resort to treating them as analogous to collectives
> > like "The team have been playing well", because whereas "team" is
> > singular but triggering plural agreement
>
> Not for Merkins: "The team has been playing well" is the only thing
> that works. Fowler wanted us to say "The jury is agreed" but "The
> jury are disagreed", but I think no one follows him in this.
It's a well-known American/Non-American difference. Is it totally
out in your dialect, or merely more marked?
> > "These lion were tracked down yesterday".
>
> I still can't swallow it.
Can you say "The buffalo are scarce today", "These buffalo were
tracked down yesterday"? How about "antelope"? "Wildebeeste"?
--And.