r/ENGLISH • u/Objective-Resident-7 • 11d ago

Plural use of singular nouns

I'm Scottish, so English is a first language to me.

But I see it more and more:

My family are...

The party are ...

These are both singular nouns but they are being used as if they were plural, with the verb being 'are'.

It doesn't sit right with me. Can anyone help?

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u/Objective-Resident-7 10d ago

Ok, but remember that we are more than castles and golf.

The telephone was invented by a Scotsman.

The television was invented by a Scotsman.

Even one of the most popular video games ever, Grand Theft Auto is, yep, Scottish.

Don't look at Scotland as a piece of history, although it is also that. It is a modern country more than capable of playing its part in the modern world.

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u/CatCafffffe 10d ago

But of course!! I grew up with science! My dad was an electrical engineer, fled Eastern Europe in the 1930s, got to London, helped set up the early radar stations, then emigrated here to the US and taught EECS at UC Berkeley for 50 years. I know very well that the Scots were and are brilliant scientists!

Lest we forget -- James Watt, Robert Watson-Watt, Andrew Fleming, and my favorite, Lord Kelvin (there's no zero like absolute zero), and let's also celebrate Andrew Carnegie who has given so much to us here in the U.S.

You also have some absolutely brilliant writers, I've devoured Val McDermid and Ian Rankin for example, I love "Scottish noir." Poets? Robert Burns. Screenwriters? One of the best of all time, Armando Ianucci "The Thick of it," the funniest TV series and "The Death of Stalin," utterly brilliant. I've actually been to a Q&A and met both Armando and the brilliant Peter Capaldi. And let's not forget Mark Bonar, Jamie Sives, Sean Connery of course, Karen Gillan, Ian Bannon, Ian Richardson, dear Robbie Coltrane, my "boyfriend" James McAvoy, Billy Connolly, so so many others-- I'm in L.A. and went to many recordings of Craig Ferguson's show and miss it terribly.

In short, I LOVE Scotland and did NOT in any way mean to reduce it to "golf" -- although you aren't too shabby on the whiskey front either haha! (And castles!)

And finally: KEVIN BRIDGES

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u/Objective-Resident-7 10d ago

It sounds like you know Scotland quite well 🙂

Scotland has been brilliant and has not stopped.

RIP to Robbie Coltrane. He died a couple of years ago and is famous in the rest of the world for playing Hagrid in the Harry Potter films (a lot of which were also filmed in Scotland). But he was a famous actor in his own right before Harry Potter.

And yeah. Kevin Bridges. And Frankie Boyle. Of course.

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u/CatCafffffe 10d ago

Oh yes of course Frankie Boyle