Collective nouns

Collective nouns are words which represent a collection of people, or things.

They are words such as …

Audience	Company
Council	Club
Family	Flock
Government	Group
Jury	Press
Public	Staff

You should adopt the rule that collective nouns are singular.

For example …

We normally write "the council is" not "the council are" and "the government has", not "the government have"However, there are exceptions to this rule. Collective nouns should be followed by a singular verb and pronoun, unless the sense is clearly plural.

For example, the noun jury can be either singular or plural, depending on the meaning of the sentence.

For example …

In other words, the singular stresses the group as a non-personal unit and the plural stresses the personal individuality within the group.

For this reason, sports teams and the police should be plural.

For example …

However, where many writers fall down is with the rest of the sentence.

Having chosen to make the noun singular and give it a singular verb, such as is or has, they use the plural pronoun later in the same line, or paragraph.

For example …

Unfortunately, this mistake has become quite common, especially on radio and television, simply because it's more natural for people to use the plural pronoun they in everyday conversation.

However, it's no excuse for bad grammar and good writers will always be careful to match a singular verb with a singular pronoun.

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