[Ads-l] United States is/are
Jonathan Lighter
00001aad181a2549-dmarc-request at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Mon May 25 11:57:16 UTC 2026
Excellent question, Dan.
Data searches turn up countless collocations of "this United States"
as an attributive phrase, e.g. "this United States policy."
So there's no telling how many there are like the following, which
exemplifies what you're asking about - and from a very early date:
1840 _National Intelligencer_ (Washington, D.C.) (May 19) 2: The
commercial necessities...induced...a resolution of the State of
Virginia (21st January 1786,) appointing commissioners "To meet...and
to report to the several States such an act...as will enable...this
United States to provide for the same [viz., a uniform system of
interstate commerce.].
This too, also in official use:
1861 _Daily Democrat_ (Louisville, Ky.) (Dec. 21) 4: James Harlan,
Esq., Attorney for this United States for the District of Kentucky.
And one more:
1876 _Chicago Tribune_ (Oct. 30) 2: They are the poorest...and the
most needing help of any class in this United States at this hour.
JL
On Sun, May 24, 2026 at 7:06 PM Dan Goncharoff
<00001bc983129c8b-dmarc-request at listserv.uga.edu> wrote:
>
> Has anyone ever written "this United States"?
>
> DanG
>
> On Sun, May 24, 2026, 8:07 AM dave at wilton.net <dave at wilton.net> wrote:
>
> >
> > I did a couple of searches of the Corpus of Historical American English
> > and found the singular/plural ratio was around 1.3:1 until the 1870s. So
> > the singular was a bit more common prior to the Civil War. Then there was a
> > jump in the 1870s when it went to around 2:1 in favor of the singular.
> > There was another jump in the in the 1920s, when the ratio topped 4:1.
> >
> > There could be any number of reasons for the shifts. The one in the 1870s
> > could plausibly have been caused by changing ideas of nationhood. The one
> > in the 1920s is more curious to my mind. Perhaps a standardization of
> > editorial practices among the sources the corpus draws upon was the cause,
> > but that's a SWAG (sophisticated wild-ass guess).
> >
> > The numbers are:
> >
> > Decade Plural/Sing Raw # Ratio
> > 1820s 21/25 1.19
> > 1830s 62/81 1.30
> > 1840s 33/51 1.54
> > 1850s 45/46 1.02
> > 1860s 59/77 1.30
> > 1870s 25/46 1.84
> > 1880s 51/103 2.02
> > 1890s 58/114 1.96
> > 1900s 38/110 2.89
> > 1910s 71/158 2.22
> > 1920s 57/246 4.32
> > 1930s 42/212 5.05
> > 1940s 52/261 5.02
> > 1950s 53/288 5.43
> > 1960s 43/271 6.30
> > 1970s 36/188 5.20
> > 1980s 29/139 4.79
> > 1990s 32/127 3.97
> > 2000s 35/152 4.34
> > 2010s 32/105 3.28
> >
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: "Shapiro, Fred" <00001ac016895344-dmarc-request at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> > Sent: Sunday, May 24, 2026 7:20am
> > To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> > Subject: Re: [ADS-L] United States is/are
> >
> >
> >
> > 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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> > >
> >
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> >
>
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