Confusion over plurals is a theme I’ve covered a few times, which can be surprising as it should be easy to say if a noun describes one thing or many. But we’ve seen how compound subjects can confuse, and likewise how qualifiers like “a lot” can cause confusion.

A recent comment on the blog made me consider another difficult area for plurals: whether we can refer to a group noun in the plural in general, and what happens when we use a group noun with plural complement? In this case, the starting point was the sentence “The couple are newlyweds.” Is it correct, and why or why not?

Let’s see.

Group Noun or Plural?

To start with, it’s worth covering the difference between a group noun and a plural. A group noun describes many people or things, but refers specifically to the group, so is considered, grammatically, a single item, and take a singular verb form. Many words that refer to plurals can be treated as singular, for example couple, pair, group, team or crowd.

• The crowd was getting restless.
• My pair of scissors is broken.

But notice my use of qualifying language here: they are grammatically singular and can take a singular form. In practical English, you’ll find this is rather flexible; English speakers often use plural verbs with group nouns, keeping in mind they refer to plurals. This may be technically incorrect, but it is common enough that I wouldn’t judge it unfairly.

Often, patterns with plural nouns emerge to explain these inconsistencies, depending on rather subjective factors. “Couple” is an excellent example of this: the student who asked today’s question found that a dictionary suggested we use a plural verb with a couple before they are married and singular after they are married. This is perfectly reasonable as we might consider a couple more separate before marriage, and a single unit afterwards – however it’s a pattern, certainly not a rule. Such patterns are not universal or necessarily widely known.

Similar patterns exist: when people consider a group noun to cover a certain number of people, or wish to emphasise the group’s constituent parts, they may also use a plural. I often use large business and organisation names in the plural in stories myself, because I wish to draw attention to the people the nouns represent – though this depends on context (whether at that moment the noun is more appropriately representing collected people or a single entity). With a company, we might be discussing the nature of its business or its employees, each of which could justify a different verb form:

• Duvcorp is a very efficient company.
• Duvcorp are a really awful group of people.

Now, the second option here is technically incorrect. The complement is even singular – “a really awful group”. So how do we justify the use of a plural verb? Because we consider the company to represent “people”, i.e. “the employees of Duvcorp”. I keep in mind in a situation like this is what pronoun I would use. “They are a really awful group of people.” sounds much more natural to me when discussing a collected company, while “It is a really awful group of people.” would not sound like we’re referring to a company but an isolated group.

This is very nuanced and perhaps hard to fully explain – and some may say it is plainly wrong to use a plural here – but it comes from feeling for what makes most sense. I would argue that the rules of grammar are of no use if the sentence ends up sounding uncomfortable. The key is to give it sufficient thought that it makes sense, and to be consistent with this, not to fulfil a standardised grammar rule. And indeed, when I edit text for clients these are things I make a point of establishing as a matter of style early on: do we treat companies, governments, etc. as plural or singular?

Group Nouns With Plural Complements

The next step from this is somewhat a reversal of the example above. Just as I’d happily use the plural “They are” with “a group”, things can get murky when we use a plural complement with a group noun. When you have a plural complement, you have to take such sentences on their own merits and go with what makes most sense. Consider our original example:

• The couple are newlyweds.

We have a group noun (typically treated as singular) with a plural complement (typically treated as plural). The most grammatical solution would be to rewrite the sentence, and avoid combining such components, but that doesn’t help because in reality group nouns by their nature refer to plurals; we’re bound to assign them plural complements at some point. And besides, I’d say that the plural verb quite plainly wins here, to the degree that it’s scarcely worth considering the group noun should be singular. Why?

Well, we cannot use the singular because “is newlyweds” sounds horribly wrong, and “is newlywed” would refer to only one of them (well, it’s incorrect, it would have to be “is a newlywed”, or “is newly wed”, which carries a different meaning). Yet we can be forgiven for using a plural with group nouns, as shown above. So, defaulting to the plural for a group noun should work just fine in these situations.

This is a specific example but I’m sure if you look out for it you’ll see it quite often. It’s a situation where practical use must win out over strict grammar – and actually follows a system quite similar to the considerations for compound subjects; the conjugation depends more on what sounds right than what we might technically analyse as correct. Though this is, as I’ve said, a rather subjective point, and I’d expect not everyone will always agree on it. Such is language! Let me know if you have any thoughts below.

If you found this article, useful, check out my book, Advanced Writing Skills for Students of English, for more advice on writing and editing.