brado09
07-09-2007, 11:54 AM
Came across this question while reading Grant Wahl's soccer mailbag on si.com. Just curious if anyone from this board posted the question:
Something has confounded me over the past couple of years, yet no one has been able to help me. Whenever I hear an announcer or fan say something like, "Italy are the World Champions," or "Liverpool are playing Milan," it bugs me that there is no subject-verb agreement. Do they use the plural form of the verb because they are referring to a team with more than one player? When discussing sports here, people would say, "Arizona plays in the NL West," or "The Wildcats will make the Rose Bowl this year." While potentially unrealistic, it is grammatically correct. Will you please explain this to me? I need to be able to sleep at night.
-- Marcus, Phoenix
Something has confounded me over the past couple of years, yet no one has been able to help me. Whenever I hear an announcer or fan say something like, "Italy are the World Champions," or "Liverpool are playing Milan," it bugs me that there is no subject-verb agreement. Do they use the plural form of the verb because they are referring to a team with more than one player? When discussing sports here, people would say, "Arizona plays in the NL West," or "The Wildcats will make the Rose Bowl this year." While potentially unrealistic, it is grammatically correct. Will you please explain this to me? I need to be able to sleep at night.
-- Marcus, Phoenix