[Ads-l] "A _team_ of UC Davis students _are_..."

[Robin Hamilton]

... or Subtle Semantic Difference, differentiating between the group considered
*as* a group, and the group considered as a set of individuals?

"A team of UC Davis students is expected to perform well it arrives tomorrow"

vs.

"A team of UC Davis students are expected to riot when they arrive tomorrow"

R.

> 
>     On 30 December 2016 at 00:25 Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM> wrote:
> 
> 
>     1) Creeping Britspeak?
> 
>     2) Operation of the innovation that the number of the verb is controlled
> by
>     the number of the closest noun preceding the verb - "students" - and not
> by
>     the number of the subject - "team"?
> 
>     Since the author later writes
> 
>     "... the UC Davis _team seeks_ ..."
> 
>     wherein the *singular* subject immediately precedes the verb and not the
>     *plural* object of a preposition, the answer is very likely (2).
> 
>     --
>     -Wilson
>     -----
>     All say, "How hard it is that we have to die!"---a strange complaint to
>     come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
>     -Mark Twain
> 
>     ------------------------------------------------------------
>     The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
> 

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The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org