The answer to your question is probably not as clearcut as you'd like it to be: Couple can take either the singular or plural verb. It all depends on whether the couple is seen as one social unit ( a married couple) or whether the members

In Australia I would say "uncle in law" or "uncle-in-law". This also applies to aunts but I've never heard it used to refer to any other relationship such as nieces, nephews, cousins, etc. Logically though, you could say

Smarter people than I have not answered you yet; so, I shall have a go. Here in the United States, probably everyone would construe "competition" as singular. E.g., "The competition in this field is fierce." Of course, English

Hi Zazzex The following should enable to understand Mr Wordy's reply. Please note that in British English, it should be: There is a cat and a dog. Below is the information extracted from two books on English usage. The first book

Danny-K, Thanks a lot Number 3 is incorrect because "are an example" mixes plural and singular. I remember seeing many native American English speaker using something like this. Even I found it a bit weird initially

Welcome to the EnglishForums! Please register - it's free and then your postings will not have to be moderated. In the case of uncountable nouns American English and British English often differ in their rules. Various pieces of information

The proper plural of "status" is "status", but with a stressed "u." The commonly used plural of "status" in American English is "statuses" however, this is due to it being used in such frequency by

In American English, a period or duration of time (as a unit) is singular. The 1960s was a decade (note the singular unit of time) of revolution in art and music. If taken as separate individual years, it can be plural: The early 1990s were years

There are potentially differences here between American English and British English. I'm a British English speaker, so my reply reflects British English usage. With nouns such as "team", "group", "committee"

It seems that "headed" rather than heading has now entered the mainstream of English as it is used in the UK, possibly because of the use of American English spelling and grammar checkers. Until recently in the UK we used only the