Collective Nouns
noun n. a person, place, thing, or quality
col•lec•tive adj. gathered into a whole; characteristic of a group
Collective nouns can be tricky when pairing them with the correct verb form. They can be singular or plural. Perhaps we should start with an example:
Team either can be singular or plural, depending on if you refer to the team as a unit or by its individual members.
Singular: The team is celebrating its big win.
Plural: The team are playing separate positions.
In the first, the team is a unit. It is one thing. In the second, the team actually refers to the individual members of the team. Of course, the plural sentence sounds more natural if the word members is inserted after team. But the meaning is the same whether the word is there or not.
Other examples of collective nouns:
Family
Management
Company
Swarm
Crowd
There really are way too many to list. Just another grammar tidbit to be aware of.
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