US vs. UK — Collective Nouns

I saw this headline yesterday on the American website FiveThirtyEight, for an article discussing England’s progress in the World Cup. Yes, while giants like Brazil, Spain and Germany have fallen by the wayside, England are somehow still there, at least for the next few hours.

Because I’m a speaker of British English, not American English, the headline seemed a bit strange. That’s because for me and most British-based writers, England expresses the concept of lots of people: the eleven people on the pitch at any one time, the other twelve members of the squad, the manager, and all the support staff. England for me is most definitely plural in this situation. If I was writing the headline, it would read: “England can get even better. And they will need to.” They, not it. In American English, England is seen as a single entity, which is why it is used. Notice as well that in the opening paragraph of this post I wrote “…England are somehow still there…” without even thinking about it, but an American would most likely write “…England is somehow still there…”.

This US–UK difference is seen for a whole class of words known as collective nouns. These include words such as class, family, team, pack, gang, police, council, committee, and so on. They’re all used to express a group of people, animals, or things. In British English, we usually treat these nouns as plural, and use them only with plural pronouns and verb forms. Americans are much more likely to use the singular versions. (Police, however, is normally treated as plural even in American English.)

UK: My team are losing again. They’re doing very badly at the moment.
US: My team is losing again. It’s doing very badly at the moment.

UK: The local council are facing serious financial difficulties.
US: The local council is facing serious financial difficulties.

UK: My family are staying with me over Easter.
US: My family is staying with me over Easter.

UK: The committee usually make the final decision on these matters.
US: The committee usually makes the final decision on these matters.

For sports teams, local or national, we see the same pattern:

UK: Birmingham City are leading Aston Villa 2–0.
US: Seattle is leading Philadelphia 21–18.

However, some American sports teams have plural names, for example the Red Sox or the Yankees, and they always take plural forms:

US: The Yankees are losing 4–2 to the Red Sox in the top of the seventh inning.

One final note: animals have their own special collective nouns, and there are loads of them. A few examples are a herd of cows, a flock of sheep, a pride of lions, and a shoal of fish. Don’t worry if you don’t know these!