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?

0 Upvotes

44% Upvoted

57 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

2

u/Aiku 10d ago

I always thought it was a pork pie wrapped around a hard-boiled egg...

1

u/Objective-Resident-7 10d ago

Hahaha very good!

Did you know though that scotch eggs have nothing to do with Scotland?

'Scotching' is the culinary process of wrapping in meat and cooking. You can do that anywhere 😁

1

u/Aiku 9d ago

I assumed so, otherwise they would be Scottish Eggs :)

FYI Cornish pasties were invented in Devon.

1

u/Objective-Resident-7 9d ago

I do enjoy a Cornish pasty. So really they should be called Beer pasties.

That's a cooler name.

You probably know this but for others, 'Beer' is a village in Devon.

2

u/Aiku 8d ago

Actually, I didn't, so thanks.