Search results for 'tag:British English tag:Plurals' matching tags 'British English' and 'Plurals'

Re: Transformational Rules and Subject-Verb Agreement

Cool Breeze — Sun, 20 Jul 2008 17:08:25 GMT

Anonymous
The couple is living in Dallas
The couple are living in Dallas

Which?

Either one will do. Couple is grammatically singular but two people are needed to form a couple. Especially in British English a plural verb is often used if many people are involved: England are up four to two. That's what a British sports commentator would say about a football match. I don't think I have ever heard is used in that context.

Re: family is/are

nona the brit — Sun, 20 Jul 2008 13:00:57 GMT

Sometimes (particularly in British English) we can vary whether we use the singular or plural verb in these cases. It can change the meaning though. Remember that the singular verb is used when we are thinking of the group as a whole single entity. The plural verb can be used when we are thinking of the individual members of that group. I would interpret your sentences:

My family is big. There are a lot of people in my family. The group (familly) is large in size.

My family are big. The people in my family are fat. The individuals(making up the family group) are big...which is a euphamism for fat.

Re: sport

Yoong Liat — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 05:25:58 GMT

Hi LiJ

This topic has been discussed before and I hope you will find the following helpful.

In British English 'sport' is the general term and is an uncountable noun.

For example: (1) He is not interested in sport. (2) There is too much sport on television. (3) She excels at sport.

If it refers to particular types of sport, the term 'sport/s' (a countable noun) is used.

For example: (1) Bobby's sport is tennis. (2) My favourite sports are tennis and hockey.

In American English, 'sports' is a plural noun.

For example: He likes watching sports on television.

Re: devastation

Yoong Liat — Sun, 13 Jul 2008 18:01:35 GMT

Hi New2grammar

I've gone through the following Britsh English dictionaries and the definitions are as follows:

local [usually plural] someone who lives in a place where you are or the place that you are talking about: We asked one of the locals to recommend a restaurant. (Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English)

local [usually plural] a person who lives in a particular place or district: The locals are very friendly. (Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary)

noun: locals The locals are the people living in a particular area. (Times-Chambers Essential English Dictionary)

noun: locals The locals are local people. (Collins Cobuild Dictionary for Advanced Learners)

I will leave you to decide whether, according to British English, 'a local' is fine.

A head for figures?

Stenka25 — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 23:10:54 GMT

StartFragment>

In 'figure' article in a dicitonary, 'a head for figures' come up two times and

6 figures [plural] British English :the activity of adding, multiplying etc numbers [= arithmetic]

â¢ a natural ability with figures

8 a person in a painting or a model of a person:

â¢ the figure in the background

â¢ A Head for Figures

I want to know what 'a head for figures' means?

It seems like the meaning of the expression can be 'be good at arithmetic' in meaning six. But in meaning eight I cannot figure out what the 'a head for figures' refers to. Does it still mean 'be good at arithmetic'?

Thanks in advance.

A head for figures?

Anonymous — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 23:07:39 GMT

StartFragment>

In 'figure' article in a dicitonary, 'a head for figures' come up two times and

6 figures [plural] British English :the activity of adding, multiplying etc numbers [= arithmetic]

â¢ a natural ability with figures

8 a person in a painting or a model of a person:

â¢ the figure in the background

â¢ A Head for Figures

I want to know what 'a head for figures' means?

Thanks in advance.

Re: Standard spoken English

Anonymous — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 09:00:04 GMT

Something to chew on:

THE NOTION OF STANDARD SPOKEN GRAMMAR

The term âstandard grammarâ is most typically associated with written language,
and is usually considered to be characteristic of the recurrent usage of adult,
educated native speakers of a language. Standard grammar ideally reveals no
particular regional bias. Thus âStandard British Englishâ grammar consists of items
and forms that are found in the written usage of adult educated native speakers
from Wales, Scotland and England and those Northern Irish users who consider
themselves part of the British English speech community.

The typical sources of evidence for standard usage are literary texts, quality
journalism, academic and professional writing, etc. Standard grammar is given the
status of the official record of educated usage by being written down in grammar
books and taught in schools and universities.

Spoken transcripts often have frequent occurrences of items and structures
considered incorrect according to the norms of standard written English. However,
many such forms are frequently and routinely used by adult, educated native speakers.

Examples of such structures are split infinitives (e.g. We decided to immediately sell it),
double negation (e.g. He wonât be late I donât think, as compared to I donât think he will
be late), singular nouns after plural measurement expressions (e.g. Heâs about six foot
tall), the use of contracted forms such as gonna (going to), wanna (want to), and so on.

Standard spoken English grammar will therefore be different from standard
written English grammar in many respects if we consider âstandardâ to be a
description of the recurrent spoken usage of adult native speakers. What may be
considered ânon-standardâ in writing may well be âstandardâ in speech.
Speech and writing are not independent. Although some forms of spoken
grammar do not appear in writing (unless in written dialogues), there is
considerable overlap and there is an increasing range of forms appearing in
informal written texts which previously were only considered acceptable in
speech. In 120 the presence of typically spoken grammatical forms contexts as emails and internet chat-room exchanges is discussed.

From: The Cambridge Grammar of English (GCE)

Re: would

Mr Wordy — Sun, 01 Jun 2008 02:26:48 GMT

A) By June, her diet was limited to bread and water. Anything else would induce the abdominal pain.

I haven't studied English grammar as systematically as you probably have, but to me the sense is 3 (repetition in the past). Look at this alternative:

B) By June, her diet was limited to bread and water. Anything else induced the abdominal pain.

This means that if she ate anything else then she got the pain. If sentence B already means this, then what is the word "would" doing in sentence A? It can only be giving us the sense that this event had happened a number of times, and, presumably, that this is how she discovered that it induced the pain.

Part 2

1 in 10 Asians are infected with ...

This is an old "chestnut" (something that is debated over and over). My (British English) opinion is that "1 in 10 Asians are" is more natural (though I do not think "is" is incorrect). The plural "are" agrees "in spirit" with the subject, which obviously refers to many people, rather than needing to literally agree with "one". Others may take a different view.

Re: pages/amount

Anonymous — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 20:21:15 GMT

In British English p. stands for 'page' and pp. 'for pages', so Ant is correct when he says that the plural of p. is pp. Here is an example from a book, and below the definition from a dictionary.

p (PAGE) noun [ C ] plural pp
WRITTEN ABBREVIATION FOR page (PAPER)
See p. 27.
The references are on pp. 256-264.

Re: treat this as singular or plural?

Kooyeen — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 18:05:02 GMT

Hi Awence,
yes, you can say "a drug", or "several drugs". With plurals you use a plural verb in those kinds of structures:
Some of the drugs are dangerous. One half of the drugs are dangerous. Fifty percent of the drugs are dangerous.
MrP's example was different... It shows you could say "parents" could take a singular verb: Parents is not spelled parence.

By the way, I just remembered there might also be some differences between American and British English regarding plural vs singular verbs.