[Lexicog] Noun categorization in English

[John Roberts]

Hi Kim,

As a British English speaker my preference for these expressions would be 
for the plural form. Certainly for the first two, especially if "England" 
were the football team. :-)

The enemy is/are attacking.
England is/are winning 2-0.
The government has/have made its/their decision.

If the "enemy" were multiple entities and I used the singular form I would 
be implying I don't know my enemy. The same for "England". I would be more 
likely to use the singular for "government" because I am more likely to view 
it as a large faceless entity.

A herd of elephants tramples the grass.
That flock of chickens is being sold next week.

For these kinds (or kind) of expressions I know I sometimes have the verb 
agreeing with the nearest plural noun in both speech and writing, and I have 
to correct myself because I know it is ungrammatical. I think intuitively I 
am working with the semantic count/mass distinction rather than the 
grammatical singular/plural distinction. And my "natural" inclination is to 
view a group as a collection of individual entities rather than as an 
amorphous mass, so I want to express this through the plural verb agreement. 
But the rules of English grammar do not allow me to say what I really want 
to say.

John Roberts



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