[etni] Re: Fw: Tamar's question
- From: Doug & Iris Mandel <dm9@xxxxxxx>
- To: ask@xxxxxxxx, Etni <etni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Tue, 03 Nov 2009 13:21:55 +0200
I'm not in ETNI--my wife is the ETNI'er in our home. But if this helps from
reading American and British sports pages, an American team goes, but a
British team go.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Ask Etni" <ask@xxxxxxxx>
To: "Etni" <etni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Monday, November 02, 2009 4:26 PM
Subject: [etni] Fw: Tamar's question
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: sbshai - sbshai@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Subject: Tamar's question
>
>
> I've inadvertently deleted the relevant ETNI digest, but I recall that
> Tamar's question concerned the issue of collective nouns; in the example
> she
> gave, the word "class" is a collective noun -- that is, though it's
> singular
> in form, it includes more than one person. (Another common example is the
> noun 'family'.)
>
> Tamar's answer to her student was correct -- i.e., we say "Does the class
> go
> on trips?" rather than "Do..." because a singular noun { we're talking
> about
> a class, not classes!} must take a singular verb. Moreover, in this
> sentence it is clear that we're referring to the class as a single entity
> and that we are speaking about the action of the majority of the group; it
> doesn't matter whether a few individual members are excluded from the
> question because it's known they never go on trips.
>
> Hope that helps!
> Batya
>
>
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