[Ads-l] United States is/are

[Shapiro, Fred]

As I mentioned in a 2024 posting, there has been much discussion for over a century of when the term "United States" became singular rather than plural.  I can't speak knowledgably about when overall usage shifted, but I can contribute what may be the earliest known example of singularization:

1781 Alexander Spotswood Letter to Virginia Delegates 19 Aug. (Founders Online)

By the inclosed certificate you will observe, that the united states is indebted to Mr. Edward Simpson.

Fred Shapiro


________________________________
From: American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU> on behalf of Ben Zimmer <00001aae0710f4b7-dmarc-request at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
Sent: Sunday, May 24, 2026 1:25 AM
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
Subject: Re: United States is/are

I was similarly intrigued by Shelby Foote's claim and wrote about it in
these two pieces:

"Life in these, uh, this United States," Language Log, Nov. 24, 2005
https://nam12.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fitre.cis.upenn.edu%2F~myl%2Flanguagelog%2Farchives%2F002663.html&data=05%7C02%7Cfred.shapiro%40YALE.EDU%7Caf9435bc88d949fae0ae08deb954f86f%7Cdd8cbebb21394df8b4114e3e87abeb5c%7C0%7C0%7C639151971779178304%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJFbXB0eU1hcGkiOnRydWUsIlYiOiIwLjAuMDAwMCIsIlAiOiJXaW4zMiIsIkFOIjoiTWFpbCIsIldUIjoyfQ%3D%3D%7C0%7C%7C%7C&sdata=tmeQepNFnbm4RbfWr4WsOfUnMJXSbrt38FhHxgl%2BWtI%3D&reserved=0<http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/002663.html>

"The United States Is... Or Are?," Word Routes, Visual Thesaurus, July 3,
2009
https://nam12.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.visualthesaurus.com%2Fcm%2Fwordroutes%2Fthe-united-states-is-or-are%2F&data=05%7C02%7Cfred.shapiro%40YALE.EDU%7Caf9435bc88d949fae0ae08deb954f86f%7Cdd8cbebb21394df8b4114e3e87abeb5c%7C0%7C0%7C639151971779197559%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJFbXB0eU1hcGkiOnRydWUsIlYiOiIwLjAuMDAwMCIsIlAiOiJXaW4zMiIsIkFOIjoiTWFpbCIsIldUIjoyfQ%3D%3D%7C0%7C%7C%7C&sdata=Eo5FlzJrsFb76SRJedaW5Q1qMcsJ34UXVt4pGSZpsBo%3D&reserved=0<https://www.visualthesaurus.com/cm/wordroutes/the-united-states-is-or-are/>

As I wrote there, Foote echoed a number of earlier assertions going at
least as far back as 1887:

---
Washington Post, Apr. 24, 1887, p. 4
There was a time a few years ago when the United States was spoken of in
the plural number. Men said "the United States are" -- "the United States
have" -- "the United States were." But the war changed all that. Along the
line of fire from the Chesapeake to Sabine Pass was settled forever the
question of grammar. Not Wells, or Green, or Lindley Murray decided it, but
the sabers of Sheridan, the muskets of Sherman, the artillery of Grant. ...
The surrender of Mr. Davis and Gen. Lee meant a transition from the plural
to the singular.
---

--bgz


On Sat, May 23, 2026 at 10:44 PM Bill Mullins <amcombill at hotmail.com> wrote:

> I spent last week driving to some of the Virigina Civil War battlefields
> with my son, who is a big history buff.  While driving I listened to Shelby
> Foote outtakes from Ken Burns' The Civil War, in which he read the
> following passage from the third volume of his history of the conflict
> (published in 1974):
>
> "This new unity was best defined, perhaps, by the change in number of a
> simple verb. In formal as in common speech, abroad as well as on this side
> of its oceans, once the nation emerged from the crucible of that war, “the
> United States are” became “the United States is.” "
>
> I've heard this claim, that the Civil War was the point in history that
> the United States went from "are" to "is", before.  Is this the first place
> it is made?  I've not been able to come up with a search strategy to
> confirm or deny it that doesn't have far too many false positives.
>
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