English Grammar for the Utterly Confused - Laurie Rozakis 2003
Collective Nouns and Indefinite Pronouns
Chapter 5 Agreement: Matching Sentence Parts
Part 2 Usage and Abusage
A collective noun names a group of people or things. Collective nouns include the words class, committee, flock, herd, team, audience, assembly, team, and club. Collective nouns can be singular or plural, depending on how they are used in a sentence. Here are the basic guidelines:
• A collective noun is considered singular when it functions as a single unit. Collective nouns used as one unit take a singular verb.
• A collective noun is considered plural when the group it identifies is considered to be individuals. Collective nouns that indicate many units take a plural verb.
Here are some examples:
The subject team becomes plural because each member of the group is now being considered as an individual.
Indefinite pronouns, like collective nouns, can be singular or plural, depending on how they are used in a sentence. Indefinite pronouns refer to people, places, objects, or things without pointing to a specific one. Indefinite pronouns include words such as everyone, someone, all, and more.
• Singular indefinite pronouns take a singular verb.
• Plural indefinite pronouns take a plural verb.
The following chart shows singular and plural indefinite pronouns. The chart also shows pronouns that can be either singular or plural, depending on how they are used in a sentence.
Look back at the chart. You will see that the following patterns emerge:
1. Indefinite pronouns that end in -body are always singular. These words include anybody, somebody, nobody.
2. Indefinite pronouns that end in -one are always singular. These words include anyone, everyone, someone, and one.
3. The indefinite pronouns both, few, many, others, and several are always plural.
4. The indefinite pronouns all, any, more, most, none, and some can be singular or plural, depending on how they are used.
Here are some examples:
In this instance, all is being used to indicate one unit. As a result, it requires the singular verb was.
Many of the guests are sick of Tedious Ted’s endless chatter.
plural plural
subject verb
The plural subject many requires the plural verb are.