By Singular verbs, Difference between

Hello HT, Hoa Thai wrote: My old note stated: 'a number of ' is plural and 'the number of' is singular.We can apply this logic of yours to 'a number of ' too, right? 1. ?There is a number of reasons why my post may be misleading. 2. There are a number of reasons why my post may be...

Feathers wrote: Grammarian-bot wrote: Inchoateknowledge wrote:Police is a plural noun, can not have singular verb attached to it, thus not collective noun; army is a singular countable one.There is no reason for why it is so.BTW, I could not download the link.So, it means that there are plural...

Grammarian-bot wrote: Inchoateknowledge wrote:Police is a plural noun, can not have singular verb attached to it, thus not collective noun; army is a singular countable one. There is no reason for why it is so. BTW, I could not download the link. So, it means that there are plural nouns...

Inchoateknowledge wrote:Police is a plural noun, can not have singular verb attached to it, thus not collective noun; army is a singular countable one.There is no reason for why it is so.BTW, I could not download the link. I tend to disagree. Police is mostly considered and used as a singular...

Inchoateknowledge wrote:Police is a plural noun, can not have singular verb attached to it, thus not collective noun; army is a singular countable one. There is no reason for why it is so. BTW, I could not download the link. So, it means that there are plural nouns that always take plural...

Police is a plural noun, can not have singular verb attached to it, thus not collective noun; army is a singular countable one. There is no reason for why it is so. BTW, I could not download the link.

You are talking about the collective noun usage. There is a difference between AmE and BrE. From http://www.bartleby.com/64/C001/020.html Some nouns, like committee, clergy, enemy, group, family, and team, refer to a group but are singular in form. These nouns are called collective nouns....

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...