"are" in BE
"is" in AE

"All the individuals who make up the staff are..." (BE)
"The collective entity known as 'the staff' is....(AE)

@Boris: First of all, it "caught" your attention, not "catched".

Many people use "staff" as if it was a plural word. They think because there are several people in staff, they should use the plural verb. But it should be used as a singular. It is the same with "team", you often hear "...the team are running onto the pitch...", which strictly speaking is nonsense, because there are usually two teams running onto the pitch. There will be some Englanders replying that it should be plural. But when I go hiking, I always use only one staff: "The staff supports me on my perabulations."

Do not forget: When it comes to languages, logic goes (or go?) out the window.

@LK: Poor BE example, because the verb refers to the "individuals", therefore is plural. The staff is one unit, therefore the verb should be singular.

hein, ich leih' Dir'n "m" ;-)

Kannst mir bei Gelegenheit zurückgeben ...

Thank you for your replies.

@LK: I think that the "is" in your AE example refers to "the collective entity" and not to "the staff", right?

@hein mück: "... But it should be used as a singular." -> So is it wrong if used as plural? I know that in German many native speakers make such mistakes. In German it is certainly wrong, but I was not sure about the situation in English. As mentioned below, the google hit ratio of not even 2:1 ("is" vs. "are") didn't make that clear at all :-)

"The staff are ..." sounds much better to my British ears.

Perhaps I should justify that! Consider which pronoun you might use. Instead of "the staff are", it would be reasonable to say "they are". If you insist upon a singular verb, which singular pronoun would you want to use?

LK made the right point, but perhaps not very clearly. (Since I knew what was intended, I was having trouble figuring out what was being argued at first.)


"are" in BE
"is" in AE

I think it would have been clearer if written this way:
The staff (by which I mean all the individuals) are happy to help you. (BE)
The staff (by which I mean the collective entity) is happy to help you. (AE)

google:
"the staff is" 3:1 over "the staff are" at site:.edu
"the staff are" 6:1 over "the staff is" at site:.uk

"All the individuals who make up the staff are..." (BE)
"The collective entity known as 'the staff' is....(AE)

Off topic: I don't think I have ever had a Synchropunkt with girly-girl before.

The last two lines of my previous post were cut and pasted from LK for my reference while writing, and then they slid off the page so I forgot to cut them from my post. I hope they don't cause any confusion.

@Joe W: Thank you for your reply.

I'm happy that you say it sounds good to your British ears! That's what I figured when I asked some native speakers. Neither of them thought "are" sounds wrong. But not one of them could give me a reason for this usage ("are" for a singular noun).

" Instead of "the staff are", it would be reasonable to say "they are"" -> Well yes, it does not change the meaning, but it's grammatically different, since "they" is clearly plural.
To answer your question, there would be no pronoun. I'd say "staff members".


More opinions welcome :-)

@hein mück: it wasn't meant to be a BE example sentence, it was intended to show WHY we use a plural in BE.....And what has the hiking staff got to do with it, apart from confusing the issue?

>LK made the right point, but perhaps not very clearly<
True enough girly-girl! Thanks for explaining clearly what I meant! Sometimes one gets interrupted you see...
I'll have another go, even though you've already done it for me:

"the team are playing well" is, in BE, understood to mean:
"the 11 members of the team are all playing well, individually and as a unit"

In AE, "the team are playing well" is understood to mean:
"the collective entity known as 'the team' is playing well"

In BE, we understand 'the staff' to mean: "(all) the (members of) staff are happy to help (both individually and as a team)"

BE: England ARE out of the World Cup, not England IS out of the World Cup. It was ever thus and will remain so, regardless of whether non-Brits think that, 'strictly speaking', it's nonsense.

NB: short BE version: "the team'S playing really well" (ie. with "IS")

In other words, BE is flexible enough to acknowledge that a group of people is a unit made up of individuals....

ok guys..

will u say:

a team "is" playing...

OR

a team "are" playing?????
-------------------------------------------

the same goes for staff/ department/ unit/ plant/ company "IS".....

:)

In AE, it is "the team IS playing."

Another collective noun where I think there is a difference between AE and BE usage is the word "company". In AE, we say "the company IS..." (or, to give a specific example "..IBM is...") I'm not certain, but I believe in BE they say "the company ARE ..." (or, again with a specific example, "... IBM are...")

@minu: can't you work that out from what's been written above??!!

1. the team ARE playing = BE ("the team'RE playing")
2. the team IS playing = AE

3. also possible in BE, as a short version: ("the team'S playing")

And if you don't believe me, look at the sport sections of the Guardian, BBC, etc etc websites.

AE = same as in DE (2)
BE = can be same as in DE (3), but most of the time isn't (1)

That's the way it is, whether native German speakers argue about it for the next 50 years or not.........

I like minu's question.


LK, I followed your advice and searched BBC. I found about an equal number of "the team are" and "the team is", while numerous hits of "the team are" in fact refer to a real plural, such as "the members of the team are...".

It does not seem to be definite amongst BE speakers.

zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Boris, listen to any BE football commentator and you'll hear that it IS definite amongst BE speakers. I don't care about your "hits". Why? Because every single British person I've met in over 30 years of watching sporting tournaments has said "England ARE" without even thinking about it....

Do you think I'm making it up??!! Why would I?!

As I've said, in BE one CAN say "the team'S playing..." as well, but I can tell you that practically every single viewer in GB probably said "England ARE" at least once last Saturday....

PROOF:

21 mins England are getting all sorts of joy on the inept Valente's side - having Neville back certainly helps the attacking threat - and, in that
attack, Gerrard coaxes in a lovely curving cross that is just too far in front of the onrushing Lampard.

That's a quote from the live Guardian weblog for England-Portugal, to be found here:
http://football.guardian.co.uk/worldcup2006/m...

Stop arguing about this and just accept it - IT'S STANDARD BE!

Not that it will help much, but I agree wholeheartedly with LK.

Particularly when volition is involved I (BE) would tend to use the plural -- unless I want to imply a collective personality or will.

Consider the following "examples":

'The management frequently comes out with glib statements like "The staff is there to help you." but, in reality, even the management are not able to agree on how willing the staff are to provide assistance. In fact, the staff have different standards: some of them are happy to help and some are not.'

* "The staff is requested to keep its opinions to itself."

* "The staff should keep its belongings in the lockers provided."

My personal favourite examples of the (incorrect) use of singulars/plurals with collective nouns come from Gower:

* "The committee leaves its hats in the hall."

* "The committee were smaller when I last sat on them."

Plural verb definitely OK. Entirely normal BE.
"England are"
"the staff are"
"the police are"
"Microsoft are"
even "The company are"

For me, a native AE speaker, all of the above examples except 'police' would be treated as singluar. (Note, however, that tThe police force' would be singluar.) 'Committee' would also be singluar. For most of these words, I would also use 'they' as the pronoun, not 'it'; 'committee' is the one exception--I might use 'it,' but more likely 'we' if I sit on the committee.

One way to avoid problems is to append the word 'member' to some of these words: 'the staff members are happy to assist you' or 'the team members are playing well.' If you say 'committee members,' then the correct pronoun is clearly 'they.'

So auch in jeder GUTEN Grammatik nachzulesen (z.B. Quirk/Greenbaum, Hewings, etc.), die englischsprachige Leute verfasst haben. Unglaublich ist jedoch, wie unverblühmt manch Deutsche die klaren Aussagen infragestellen...Tsss!

Agree with LK that "are" is absolutely standard & common in BE. That said, I'm not sure that "is" would be considered _wrong_ as such- just unusual (and mark you out as a foreigner, of course)

1a) staff, family, couple, etc. -- variable: singular in reference to the whole (The staff is very large), plural in reference to the members (The staff wear casual clothes on Fridays)

1b) committee, board, jury, etc. -- also somewhat variable, but more often plural in BE than AE

2a) company, firm, society, club, etc. -- always singular in AE, often plural in BE in reference to the leaders/decision makers

2b) sports team, musical ensemble, etc. -- always singular in AE, usually plural in BE in reference to the players

3) police -- always plural in English (AE/BE)

This is just off the top of my head; especially the a) vs. b) groups are a bit hard to pin down, as usage can vary from person to person and case to case. For a better list, check an advanced grammar book or an online ESL/EFL site.

See also
  related discussion:police is/are -- Polizei
  related discussion:Your class are planning a trip to Nottingham.
related discussion

and many others. For more, use the search engine of your choice + 'site:.leo.org.'

Just for completeness, here is a quote from Greenbaum (The Oxford English Grammar):
<< Singular collective nouns refer to a group of people or animals or to institutions. They may be treated as either singular or plural. They are treated as plural (more commonly in British English than in American English) when the focus is on the group as individuals rather than a single entity. They may then take a plural verb, and plural pronouns may be co-referential with them >>
Greenbaum also has an interesting example (unfortunately a bit long) where a change from singular to plural is accompanied by a change from "which" to "who":
<<. . . arrived in this country to find a society which is dominated by a ruling class which is cohesive abd self-defining . . . a class who dominate all the best jobs who own most of the land control most of the wealth . . .>>