In the sentence:  The team could not win the match because it was split into two groups.  The correction given is: The team could not win the match because they were split into two groups.  According to me, "team" is a single entity which was split into two, so that should not be incorrect. Am I missing something?
79444
A newspaper ran this headline recently:     (1)  [emph added]   Why did it not read:     (2) ? Police cracks down on IAC protesters.   I have found instances of "police cracks" in newspapers:  and . However,  suggests that "police cracks" is significantly less frequent:    I think that the difference between "Police crack down" and "Police cracks down" is influenced by  and that the difference in this example reflects the  of the verb's . Here, "cracks" is inflected for singular number, which implies that its subject is singular, and "crack" is inflected for plural number, which implies that its subject is plural. E.g.:     The army cracks down on IAC protesters. [singular]      The armies crack down on IAC protesters. [plural]   The confusing thing about (1) and (2) is that the subject, "police", looks like it is singular; the plural form would be "polices", but I have never heard this form (for the noun).  It sounds like police fits the definition of a , which Wikipedia says is "the name of a number (or collection) of people or things taken together and spoken of as one whole. For example, in the phrase 'a pride of lions', pride is a collective noun." Police fits this because it refers to (i) some relevant police force or (ii) some relevant group of police officers, which are both collections of people taken as wholes. It does not refer to a single police officer.  So one might conjecture that verbs whose subjects are collective nouns are inflected for plural number. However, it sounds like group also fits the definition of a collective noun because it refers to a collection of individuals taken as a whole. And I think that both of the following sound acceptable.     (3) The group crack down on IAC protesters.      (4) The group cracks down on IAC protesters.   The above conjecture also doesn't explain why it is sometimes okay to use "police cracks".  My preliminary questions: Do (1), (2), (3) and (4) all sound acceptable to everyone else? Are police and group both collective nouns?   My main questions: If (3) and (4) are both acceptable and police and group are both collective nouns, then why does (1) but not (2) sound acceptable, or at least why is "police crack" better than "police cracks"? How do you determine the correct conjugation for a verb whose subject is a collective noun? Is there a general rule, or does it vary from case to case?  My secondary questions: Does the behavior of (1) and (2) have to do with ? Is using police to refer to the police force more like a  or ? Does it matter if you add "the":     (5) The police crack down on IAC protesters.      (6) ? The police cracks down on IAC protesters.   I ask these secondary questions because I find it interesting that policeis, to me, a near  of police force, but police force () behaves oppositely to police () when it comes to subject-verb agreement:     (7) ? The police force crack down on IAC protesters.      (8) The police force cracks down on IAC protesters.   [Note: the question mark at the beginning of an example indicates questionable .]
40451
Sentences are:   "The rainforests are in danger." "Rainforests are in danger."  So in this case, I think that they are both correct sentences...but:  "Guitars are musical instruments."  "The guitars are musical instruments."  In this case, we are still making generic statements about a plural noun, but the second one sounds bizarre. This for a student. I'm not sure WHY it's awkward. Why do we opt for "The guitar is a musical instrument."  Thanks in advance :)
29459
Is the following grammatically correct? My friend says the second sentence is grammatically incorrect, but couldn't explain why.     I have always been fascinated by statistics. The different ways in   which you could look at data and infer knowledge from it.
86658
I'm aware of (multitudinous)  concerning this, but I still feel tentative for the following example. I also referenced . Predicated on these, I'd guess that        "there are happiness and joy" is correct,   and "there is happiness and joy" is wrong.      Here, there is (I know why it's NOT there are here) a compound subject containing two nouns, thus the verb must be conjugated for a plural subject.  Yet  contradicts this significantly? Why? I fear that I  misconstrued something?
41627
All those pipelines you monitored yesterday I need their report in my office today.   Is the above sentence correct? I am concerned about "their" in the second clause, which refers back to the pipelines.
22658
Why can't I say “She died from drinking 18 cans of Coca-Cola”? Instead, the correct sentence would be “She died of drinking 18 cans of Coca-Cola”. Why does that happen?
106019
I came across a line in a movie:     You told me your dad was some fighter. You didn't say he was the most famous fighter to ever live.   This is a line spoken by a girl to a guy, and the guy's father is dead. Shouldn't it be:     You didn't say he was the most famous fighter to have ever lived.   Or     You didn't say he was the most famous fighter who ever lived.   What about     You didn't say he was the most famous fighter who has ever lived.
79207
In sentences such as the following, how is most best understood?       1) Most children do not like cauliflower.        2) Most of the balls in the bucket are red.   I suppose there are three or more possible interpretations for most in these sentences.     A) a plurality (at least one more than any other alternative)        B) a majority (more than half, even if barely more)        C) a comfortable majority (well more than half)   For sentence 1, interpretations A and B would be equivalent since there are only two alternatives.
50790
I am not quite sure whether in the following sentence the construction of the verbs and the rest of wording are correct:     Should the construction of the University Hospital be completed, this would indeed set new standards - both in terms of size ("one of Germany’s largest university hospitals") as well as with a view to the technological advances.
123074
The context is soccer (association football) and the sentence in question is:       The forward received the ball from the midfielder's pass.     I have already ask about this  and received alot of good answers, and I tried to leave it at that.  But then the World Cup 2014 is upon us, and I am starting to have doubts about this football usage of "from", to the point that I have semi-nightmares about it.  The use of "from" in the football example continues to bother me.  I seem to disagree (subconsciously) about how a ball (physical object) could be "from" a pass (action) unless that action creates that object.       Some people were hit by debris from the explosion.   The use of "from" in "debris from the explosion" makes excellent sense to me, because the explosion does create the debris.  But in soccer/football, the ball cannot possibly be "created" by a pass.    Is there any non-football usage of "from" similar to my football example sentence?
98496
First of all, English is not my first language. I have a question, maybe a basic one, about this phrase:     The situation highlights the mismatch between some areas of training and available jobs to/for them.   Should it be "available jobs to them" or "available jobs for them"?  Sorry if the question is really basic.
36053
Today I was cut off in the middle of the following sentence:     Between Cook, Strauss, and Pietersen—   My friend said I was wrong. He said that for more than two entities, among/amongst are used, and that between is only for two entities.   I vaguely remember some rule like this, but I asked him to hear the whole sentence, which was:     Between Cook, Strauss, and Pietersen, they’ve notched up 56 centuries in Test cricket.   Should I have used among here? Seems correct to me to use between, but my friend was certain.   Another friend pointed out the following sentence:     I’m still choosing between Harvard, Yale, and MIT.    Certainly among doesn’t seem to fit here, and she, to me, was correct in using between.
1135
I'd say Microsoft have a way of bending the rules and I know that McLaren have won the championship. While this sounds strange, I believe it is correct English (sorry, I'm not native).   But when it's a small company, would you still use it this way? Is a company always plural, or are small companies singular? I.e., would you say Bakery Johnson makes fine bread or Bakery Johnson make fine bread? Is it My book seller, Woody's, have moved or is it has moved?
7481
Is this the proper way to use two possessive nouns in a row?     I am going over to Lauren's parents' house this evening.   or     The store's manager's niece was quite attractive.   What about three?*     The United States Army's general's wife's dog is on the lamb, somebody stop it.   *Three seems both unrealistic, and in the specific example I used you could make a case for adding a fourth United State's Army's but I think that seems even more unrealistic.  Additionally, I would never write this in any sort of setting other than the purpose of knowing what the rules are.  Thanks in advance, I apologize in advance if this is duplicate
43284
There is a sentence:     No sooner had he sat down than he fell asleep.   I just do not understand, is this an inversion? And if so, I still do not understand the sentence.
33381
A line from William Golding's The Lord of the Flies:     All round him the long scar smashed into the jungle was a bath of heat.   Is it just me or does the sentence seem grammatically off?
26528
Is the following correct?     Can I get some chocolate for myself? Yes, you can but not much.   Is two bars OK?   Is there any rule to explain the sentence above?  The dialogue's taken from Grammar Textbook Round-Up Level #3.