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Hello!
Reading A Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel, I found this phrase: At his back a troupe of painted nymphs are frisking in a glade.
Is it grammatically correct to use "are" here? I believe it should be "is", because the troupe is frisking, and "of nymphs" is part of an extended noun.
I would be grateful for your opinion.
Thank you!
That book was WINNER OF THE 2009 MAN BOOKER PRIZE, WINNER OF THE NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD FOR FICTION, A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER, and Amazon's "Best of the Month" for October 2009.
If word gets out that using a plural verb with a singular subject can have thoe results, authors is gonna perpetrate syntactical terrorism on their readers.
I believe that in British English it is fairly common for a plural verb form to be used with a collective noun. Particularly so where the intent of the sentence is that the members comprising the group are functioning as individuals: The army were pitching their tents or The cast were learning their roles. It's not a huge stretch to see that the army is made up of soldiers, and that a cast is a bunch of actors – who most assuredly act as individuals even when acting together! English is very often not logical, and when it is, different logic may apply in its different branches.
Consider: The Pittsburgh Pirates were hot that year. The team was on fire. Pittsburgh was sure to win the pennant. The Pirates were the team to beat.
All four sentences are referring to exactly the same thing, but in two cases it's singular, in two it's plural. Does that make any sense? I believe that standard British usage is the plural in all these cases.
Consider: Dame Hilary has rather strong credentials as a writer. If you wanna correct her choices, go right ahead.
Agreement of subject and verb is not always as simple as it appears, and can be influenced by subtle nuance. Collective nuance as opposed to individual nuance is often key.
A hundred dollars were hanging on the tree.
A hundred dollars was on the mantle.
As tromboniator correctly points out, some subgroups of English, not just Brits, have a greater tendency to use plural verbs with singular collective nouns.
"His family were enormously wealthy - even in college his freedom with money was a matter for reproach - but now he'd left Chicago and come east in a fashion that rather took your breath away: ... ." The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald
A LOT of American writers write (not *writes) this way, too. A LARGE NUMBER of people overlook (not *overlooks) this.
Glenn said
A hundred dollars were hanging on the tree.
A hundred dollars was on the mantle.
There is a useful distinction there, however. There are 100 coins or bills hanging from the tree. We don't know it the mantle has a single benjamin, five twenties, or an assortment of denominations.
Does one capitalize "Benjamin" when it's a denomination? I'm not sure if Canadians capitalize loonie or toonie, and I've never seen ducat, finif, sawbuck, or double-eagle capitalized. Is it necessary to capitalize franklin stove, mason jar, southpaw, even if Franklin, Mason and South are capitalized?
deaconB said
Is it necessary to capitalize franklin stove, mason jar, southpaw, even if Franklin, Mason and South are capitalized?
I have never seen south capitalized unless it was part of a proper name like South Dakota. As far as the others go, I would capitalize them but I can't quote a rule.
Dick said: I have never seen south capitalized unless it was part of a proper name like South Dakota. As far as the others go, I would capitalize them but I can’t quote a rule.
In terms of the cardinal directions, there are indeed "rules" as explained here: http://www.proofreadnow.com/blog/bid/30440/North-East-South-or-West-Capitalize-or-Not
So as Dick says, it comes down to whether the use is as a proper or common noun. Although in print, I often see these "rules" violated. I do it myself on occasion when writing about astronomy, if I feel the need for visual emphasis.
But the question asked by deaconB regarding proper nouns that have become part of a noun phrase (like franklin stove) or proper nouns that have become common nouns through slang or context (like benjamin) seems much more consistent in usage. They are not capitalized.
We do a similar thing in science. The unit of force, for example, is the "newton." It is, of course, named after Sir Isaac Newton. But SI decrees the units of measurement not be capitalized. And that happens with a lot of scientists' names used throughout SI.
Alla said
a troupe of painted nymphs are frisking in a glade.
I agree with the plural here, because it sounds like the nymphs are frisking individually, not as a group. When a collective is acting as a unit, then singular: The Board of Directors is deciding the question right now.
A more important consideration, says John Garner (Dictionary of Modern American Usage), is consistency. If you're going to mention the troupe of nymphs several times in a composition, stick with either singular or plural; don't switch back and forth.
deaconB said
Is it necessary to capitalize franklin stove, mason jar, southpaw, even if Franklin, Mason and South are capitalized?
Usually it's Franklin stove and Mason jar, but southpaw. The first two are named for their inventors. South is capitalized when referring to the American South but lower-cased when used as a direction. I don't think southpaw derives from the region of the country.
Heimhenge said
We do a similar thing in science. The unit of force, for example, is the "newton." It is, of course, named after Sir Isaac Newton. But SI decrees the units of measurement not be capitalized. And that happens with a lot of scientists' names used throughout SI.
But, most times, the abbreviation for the unit is capitalized: N for newtons, Pa for pascals, V for volts, A for amperes, S for siemens, etc. (ohm gets a capital omega)
Robert said
So verb can determine plurality, overriding noun. Trivial challenge: can an adjective do that in a sentence, overriding both noun and verb?
I don't think it's a matter of one word overriding another, but rather a matter of interpreting what's going on in any given case and choosing verbs and modifiers that reflect those circumstances.
The platoon lost its way. (The soldiers were traveling as a unit, following one leader.)
The platoon lost their helmets. (Each individual wore a helmet and all of them individually lost their helmets.)
Peano said
deaconB said
The American bison was extinct in the 1950s, ....
Just as a point of fact, I don't think that's true. Footnote?
A census in 1905 had shown only 1089 bison still existed. In the late 1960s, both Reader's Digest and Boy's Life cited the American bison and the passenger pigeon as extinct species, the last bison having died in Yellowstone Park, and the last passenger pigeon in the Cincinnati zoo. Coronet magazine also published something to that effect, although I'm not sure exactly when. It was an old magazine when I read it, and I would guess that it was an early-'50s issue.
Rachel Carson, in Silent Spring (1962), alluded to those extinctions in Chapter 7, when she decried the fact that we've now added a new kind of havoc, with the direct killing by chemical insecticides. In the early 1970s, I read that they'd discovered a small herd of bison in Canada that nobody realized was there. I keep waiting for the passenger pigeon and the dodo to come back to life.
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