In British English^x, Plurals^x

Goodman wrote:Neither the letters nor the memo (was) on your desk. Neither/ either/ any/ someone etc.....always takes on the singular verb form Neither is paired with nor as either is with or, and in those uses as conjunctions they pose usage problems of agreement. Usually they will take a...

It's those KINDS, this KIND. It is NEVER those KIND. It is flat-out wrong. One is plural, the other is singular. You don't say there were two kind of trees, do you? Well, I certainly don't (except ironically in my previous post). But apparently many respected writers and speakers of English...

In British English we talk about 'the elections' for a specific election. Grapefruits are or grapefruit is Aircraft can be singular or plural; aeroplane needs an s to form the plural.

In British English (I cannot speak for American English) it is acceptable to treat collective nouns as plural. English grammar sometimes looks to the sense, rather than the form. Collective nouns may be felt by English speakers to be plural for the simple reason that they consist of more than one...

Hiya. I am volunteering on an open source computer application project, helping out with documentation. We are working on a section of the program that handles lists of persons, with their names, addresses, etc. A small controversy has arisen: You -- and I -- might know this function as a...

First of all, the verb phrase "was/were hurt" refers to none of the officers. Shooting is a subject of the first clause, so don't worry about it. None of the officers should be followed by a singular verb in a formal style in British English, i.e. ...but none of the officers was hurt. However,...

I just got my Swan back from a friend and here's what he has to say about these group words. -------------------------------------------------- Michael Swan; Practical English Usage: 503 1 groups of people In British English, singular words like family, team, government, which refer to groups...

Uh, no offense but their are a whole lot of misconceptions about American English in this thread. The "fag" thing has already been pointed out, so I'll let that one be. "The main difference between British English and American English is that in the former there is perfect grammar even in the...

1. Use of present perfect tense and simple past tense Speakers of American English generally use the present perfect tense (have/has + past participle) far less than speakers of British English. In spoken American English it is very common to use the simple past tense as an alternative in...

From "http://www.bartleby.com/68/49/349.html": These two prepositions are interchangeable in meaning, but among is far more frequent in American English; for some, amongst has a rather dusty-genteel quality. It occurs far more often in British English. (1) The Oxford English Dictionary...