english grammar help, please

[bgowland]

Speaking as a Geordie, who can speak perfect English when appropriate , I agree with Martin and Alex.

'Staff' in this instance is always a collective and so #2 will always apply. The easiest way to think of it is that 'staff' is a synonym of 'employees'.

For example...

'The employees are happy' therefore it should be 'The staff are happy' etc. It would be grammatically incorrect to say 'The employees is happy' etc.

Cheers,
Brian

[whurlston]

Actually everyone has the correct answer. Both answers are correct because it is a holonymic collective and can be used in both a singular form of the holonymic collective:
The staff is happy.

Or as a mass holonymic collective:
The staff (of employees) are happy.

Edit: but for the Queen's english, the later is prefered.

[ACTCMS]

Edit: but for the Queen's english, the later is prefered.

Nice one... except 'latter'

Alex (Pedant)

[wannabepvr]

It seems the forum is busy.
It seems the forum are busy.

The fist seem to refer to the web site. The second seems to refer to it's members. Both are sarcastic.

I hate to say it but I enjoy the stupid rules of grammar. If only I could spell them.


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I tell ya wanabe, this had better be up there with "I have a dream...."

Go make that 500th post, but it needs to be monumental and something worthy of a 500th post... or we'll hold you in judgement..

I haven't posted in a while because of the enormous pressure created by the quotes above. Finally I couldn't hold on - I just had to go forward and disappoint.

[ACTCMS]

500 up - at last the tension is over - what a nailbiter...

edit: any plans for when you get to 665?

[Fatman_do]

I got nothin.

I go by the "sounds right" rule. If it sounds ok to my ear, I throw it out there.

It's not like anyone has ever had to edit my spelling or grammar on teh wiki.

[Deusxmachina]

Look at all the for-een-ers banding together against the North Amer-eee-cans.

It's easy to see how the words are treated differently. UK-area people saying "staff" is a collective so is plural, but in the U.S. you could easily argue "staff" is a collective but is a singular collective because you only have one collective even though it's made up of many people. Unless you happen to have more than one staff of many people.

Similar to the word "group." A group is a collective of many, but you only have one singular group.

"The group has chairs to sit on."
"The group have chairs to sit on."

Either would likely be considered correct here, but this example is easier because "group" has the obvious plural of "groups." Despite it being a collective of a plural number of people, "group" is a singular thing unless you have more than one, which would be "groups."

Back to "staff." Someone fighting for a right answer on a test could also argue they have a staff consisting of only one person and that "staff" MUST be singular in that case.

[Fatman_do]

It seems the forum is busy.
It seems the forum are busy.

The fist seem to refer to the web site. The second seems to refer to it's members. Both are sarcastic.

I hate to say it but I enjoy the stupid rules of grammar. If only I could spell them.


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I haven't posted in a while because of the enormous pressure created by the quotes above. Finally I couldn't hold on - I just had to go forward and disappoint.

On top of that you had to edit your post instead of # 501 !!!!

Now you are going to hang on to 500 like a.....

whatever.

[gEd]

It seems the forum is busy.
It seems the forum are busy.

The fist seem to refer to the web site. The second seems to refer to it's members. Both are sarcastic.

I hate to say it but I enjoy the stupid rules of grammar. If only I could spell them.

I haven't posted in a while because of the enormous pressure created by the quotes above. Finally I couldn't hold on - I just had to go forward and disappoint.

and then you go and make a fist of it.....

[edit] fist (slang): to screw it up

[whurlston]

Nice one... except 'latter'

Alex (Pedant)

Hey, I know a little about grammar but I never said I could type. :p

BTW: Congrats on 500 wannabepvr!!