plural collective nouns

[Richard Jensen]

In my last communication on this mater, I made a rather poor choice for my example
by using an English verb construction ("have spoken") that is appropriate for
either a singular or plural subject e.g., "I have spoken" or "We have spoken").
Perhaps a better example would be

    "The committee is meeting in room 203 at noon."
    "The committee are representatives of four separate departments."

While the latter may not sound as pleasing as saying "The members of the committee
are...," it is grammatically correct ("The members of" is implicit in the
construction).  The point is that when writing in English, a collective noun (and I
think in standard usage plant family names are collective nouns) may have a
singular or plural verb depending upon the context.


--
Richard J. Jensen              TEL: 219-284-4674
Department of Biology      FAX: 219-284-4716
Saint Mary's College         E-mail: rjensen at saintmarys.edu
Notre Dame, IN  46556     http://www.saintmarys.edu/~rjensen