A secret about collective nouns - English In A Minute
63,187 views ・ 2018-08-06
Please double-click on the English subtitles below to play the video.
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Hi, I'm Dan from BBC Learning English
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and today I'm going to tell you something about
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collective nouns.
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Collective nouns are often called group nouns.
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That is because they represent a number of
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things together.
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Examples are:
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government, family and team.
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So, what's the big deal?
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The special thing about these collective nouns
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is that they can be singular or plural.
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If you consider your family to be a group of individuals,
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then the pronoun is they and the verb is plural.
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My family are happy.
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But your family can also be considered as a single unit,
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a machine that all works together.
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In this case, the pronoun is it and the verb is singular.
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My family is happy.
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This does not apply to all collective nouns,
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so be careful.
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Police and staff are always plural.
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