Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2014 August 16

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August 16

Subject-verb agreement in en-gb

Please see my changes in edits one and two. Are these correct for en-gb? I can't imagine how it could be correct to say "...the club has played at their current home ground...Aston Villa were founder members...", but as a native speaker of en-us, I could be wrong, and I would expect basic grammar issues in the intro to be caught on an FA, especially as it was prepared for becoming today's featured article. If I made a mistake, please revert me, or if you're not an admin, call one quickly please. Nyttend (talk) 03:44, 16 August 2014 (UTC)

In British English, wouldn't it be "the club have played at their grounds"? In America, of course, it would be "the club has played at its/their grounds" or "the Yankees have played at their stadium". ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 03:55, 16 August 2014 (UTC)

British English has a choice: "the club" (as a single entity) "has" ... but "the club" (the members of the team) "have" ... I can see the argument for making the edits, but I think I prefer the original version with its implied differences in interpretation, though it must look very odd to American readers. Dbfirs 07:10, 16 August 2014 (UTC)

But football clubs almost always take plural verbs, don't they? I'm American myself, but I've heard enough spoken British English to know that if someone says "Liverpool is..." they're talking about the city and if they say "Liverpool are..." they're talking about the football club. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 08:52, 16 August 2014 (UTC)

Seems to me we heard that British plural during the World Cup, and definitely during the Tour de France. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 14:34, 16 August 2014 (UTC)

It still depends on whether you are talking about the players or the organisation. See Liverpool F.C., Manchester United F.C., Crystal Palace F.C. and Burnley F.C. for example. I think there was an agreement on Wikipedia that British pop groups should always be plural, and BB's and Angr's argument follows this practice. I'm not a football expert, so perhaps someone else from the UK might like to comment. We ought to decide on a policy then stick to it for consistency between articles. Currently, most of our articles use the singular in the formal opening sentence. (Perhaps they were all written by Americans or by British pedants?) Dbfirs 15:37, 16 August 2014 (UTC)

What I'm afraid I cannot tolerate is a combination like "the club has played at their current home ground". 109.147.186.225 (talk) 03:22, 17 August 2014 (UTC)

I agree that sentence needed changing (I'd have made the change the other way), but "The club were floated" also grates to my ear. ( ... and it's the team that plays, not the club!) Dbfirs 09:11, 17 August 2014 (UTC)

English English speaker here: whilst other compatriots may disagree, I would use singular for "club" as it's usually treated as a (sometimes legal) singular entity; plural for "team", as that's a group noun; and singular and plural respectively for (e.g.) "Liverpool F.C." and "Liverpool". So "the club was floated", "the team were playing", etc. Bazza (talk) 11:19, 17 August 2014 (UTC)