| 词组 | agreement: organizations considered as collective nouns |
| 释义 | agreement: organizations considered as collective nouns Quirk et al. 1985 says that collective nouns "differ from other nouns in taking as pronoun coreferents either singular it and relative which or plural they and relative who without change of number in the noun " Copperud 1970 (under collective nouns) asserts, "Ordinarily, nouns for organizations considered as an entity, like company, are referred to by it, not they...." Copperud is too dogmatic. Our evidence shows that names of companies and other organizations function like other collective nouns, being sometimes singular and sometimes plural (see also collective nouns). A few examples of the singular construction: • And Harvard may consider itself very fortunate — President's Report, Harvard University, 1950-1951 • ... until GM was tooling up for its 1940 models — American Mercury, May 1953 Some examples of the plural: • The D.A.R. are going to do another pageant —Sinclair Lewis, Dodsworth, 1929 • The NBS now admit that they can confirm —New Republic, 11 May 1953 • The announcement by the University of Oklahoma Press that they are reissuing —The Pleasures of Publishing, August-September 1954 I wrote to the Pinkerton Tobacco Company Mr. • E. D. Wanamaker, their president —Curtis I. Kohn, in Safire 1982 And like other collective nouns, organizations sometimes appear with a singular verb but a plural pronoun in reference: • ... M-G-M ... hopes to sell their records in 5,000 key stores —Time, 24 Feb. 1947 • ... the National Bureau of Standards has not been sufficiently objective, because they discount entirely the play of the market place —New Republic, 13 Apr. 1953 • Chrysler is the only American car maker who builds their convertible from start to finish —cited by William Safire, N.Y. Times Mag., 15 June 1986 It seems reasonable to expect that use of the plural pronoun, even after the singular verb, will continue to flourish as large corporations, through their advertising and public-relations releases, try to present a more human and less monolithic face to the public. |
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