| Kenneth G. Wilson (1923–). The Columbia Guide to Standard American English. 1993. |
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| COLLECTIVE NOUNS |
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| are nouns designating a class or group of individual persons or things, all of them members of that class or group (such as class, flock, group, herd, team, committee, bunch, and cluster). These nouns are distinctive as subjects because they can take either singular or plural verbs and subsequent pronouns: The committee votes on its procedures tomorrow or The committee vote on their procedures tomorrow. These collectives are interesting too in that they can also be inflected for the plural to designate more than one such group of similar individuals or things; then they always take plural verbs. See AGREEMENT OF SUBJECTS AND VERBS (3). | 1 |
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| | | The Columbia Guide to Standard American English. Copyright © 1993 Columbia University Press. |
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