One might suggest that it is evidence of a general "dumbing down" of the population that started a couple of generations ago. For instance a laxity in the concept that the foundation of an education is the "three r's". An emphasis on "feeling" rather than "thinking" imposed on the education system a generation or two ago. One might even suggest that this was by design, in preparing the Sheeople for the New World Order. On 18 March 2012 04:48, Bob Trussler <bob.trussler@xxxxxxxxx> wrote: > Lee, > > My guess is that is part of the general decline in grammar standards > across the community. > Many people just don’t seem to know, or just don’t care, or both. > > > > The occasional minor errors don’t worry me, but it is getting to the stage > that I have to re-read a paragraph to workout what is really meant. > > This then leads to weighing up the various possibilities: > > - do they mean what they wrote? > > - does trying to correct the spelling help? Or are they typos > > - does correcting to all future tense, or all past tense, help? > > - can I correct to all plurals, all singular, or what could be a > plausible mix of the two and then make sense of it? > > - can reading further and then trying to apply context help at > all? > > I often give up and start a conversation on the topic, only to find that > many people don’t understand a question as a question any more. Instead, > many people take a question to be an assertion. > > Nor do some people understand the word ‘if’ any more, so they remove it > from the sentence, then start arguing about something that I did not say. > This can become a silly argument where we are both on the same side > arguing about something that was not said! > > > > Yes Lee, the crowd are strange these days. > > > On 17 March 2012 21:47, Lee O'Mahoney <leeomahoney@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > >> Can someone please explain why collective nouns are increasingly being >> treated as plural rather than singular? And how to stop it? :-) >> >> People used to say 'The crowd is yelling loudly', 'the team is working >> hard', 'the community is...', 'Telstra is jerking me around', 'Connex has >> advised that trains are running late' ie a group of things was treated as a >> collective noun and had singular verbs. >> >> Now, most people, even on ABC and BBC radio, say 'The crowd are yelling >> loudly', 'the community are...', 'the team are working hard, 'Telstra are >> still jerking me around', 'Metro have advised that trains are still running >> late'. >> >> Why the change? >> >> While I'm at it, what's with using 'If I were' instead of 'If I was...'? >> I've only noticed people doing it recently, but read that 'If I were' is OK >> if it's a hypothetical situation. >> >> eg This forum thread http://forum.wordreference.** >> com/showthread.php?t=50929<http://forum.wordreference.com/showthread.php?t=50929> >> >> If I were controlling the language, I wouldn't want people treating >> collective nouns as plural cos it sounds all wrong. Ha. >> >> Lee >> >> >> **************************************************** >> To view the austechwriter archives, go to www.freelists.org/archives/** >> austechwriter <//www.freelists.org/archives/austechwriter> >> >> To unsubscribe, send a message to >> austechwriter-request@**freelists.org<austechwriter-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>with >> "unsubscribe" in the Subject field (without quotes). >> >> To manage your subscription (e.g., set and unset DIGEST and VACATION >> modes) go to >> www.freelists.org/list/**austechwriter<//www.freelists.org/list/austechwriter> >> >> To contact the list administrator, send a message to >> austechwriter-admins@**freelists.org <austechwriter-admins@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> >> **************************************************** >> > > > > -- > Bob Trussler > > -- Rod Stuart 6 Brickhill Drive Dilston, TAS 7252, Australia <rod.stuart@xxxxxxxxx> M((040) 184 6575 V(03) 6328 1543