Grammar that makes you cringe

[Arch]

I quite like that idea.  The advertising potential of finger food has barely been tapped.  What next - flyers with your vol-au-vents?

Perhaps this ebay seller has a similar idea...

Brompton Bike With Pannini  | eBay UK

[rower40]

Collective nouns cause endless arguments: "The government are..." (seems to be preferred by the BBC), vs " The government is".

Fowler (Author of "Modern English Usage") had great fun with this; it's not just the variant of English in use, but the particular GOVERNMENT!  The US Government is singular, whereas the UK Government are plural.  (I might have that completely the wrong way round.  I'll re-post this when I next have a copy of Fowler in front of me.)

[clarion]

I quite like that idea.  The advertising potential of finger food has barely been tapped.  What next - flyers with your vol-au-vents?

Perhaps this ebay seller has a similar idea...

Brompton Bike With Pannini  | eBay UK

Best not to type your advert when you are hungry

[Andrij]

Collective nouns cause endless arguments: "The government are..." (seems to be preferred by the BBC), vs " The government is".

Fowler (Author of "Modern English Usage") had great fun with this; it's not just the variant of English in use, but the particular GOVERNMENT!  The US Government is singular, whereas the UK Government are plural.  (I might have that completely the wrong way round.  I'll re-post this when I next have a copy of Fowler in front of me.)

In my view, seems to be a general British thing.  I believe I may have ranted about this before.

UK: the government are, the team are, Nasa are, etc.
US: the government is, the team is, NASA is, etc.

'Government/team' is a collective, so singular; 'ministers/player' are plural.  Simple, no?

Then again, what do I know? English isn't my first language and I learned it in a former colony.
 

[Ian H]

Collective nouns cause endless arguments: "The government are..." (seems to be preferred by the BBC), vs " The government is".

Fowler (Author of "Modern English Usage") had great fun with this; it's not just the variant of English in use, but the particular GOVERNMENT!  The US Government is singular, whereas the UK Government are plural.  (I might have that completely the wrong way round.  I'll re-post this when I next have a copy of Fowler in front of me.)

In my view, seems to be a general British thing.  I believe I may have ranted about this before.

UK: the government are, the team are, Nasa are, etc.
US: the government is, the team is, NASA is, etc.

'Government/team' is a collective, so singular; 'ministers/player' are plural.  Simple, no?

Then again, what do I know? English isn't my first language and I learned it in a former colony.
 

I think it's relatively recent in this country. I'm sure I remember my English teachers dismissing the collective plural as illiterate.

[drossall]

I'm with HTFB with on 'a number of'. It's the equivalent of 'some', 'many' or 'numerous' etc.  And if you replace 'a number of' with one of those then the plural becomes the obvious choice.

That's because the subject in the original is the number. If you replace it as you suggest, you leave the only noun as the cyclists. Thus you have gone from a singular noun (number) to a plural one (cyclists), and "is" has to become "are".

[Cudzoziemiec]

Collective nouns cause endless arguments: "The government are..." (seems to be preferred by the BBC), vs " The government is".

Fowler (Author of "Modern English Usage") had great fun with this; it's not just the variant of English in use, but the particular GOVERNMENT!  The US Government is singular, whereas the UK Government are plural.  (I might have that completely the wrong way round.  I'll re-post this when I next have a copy of Fowler in front of me.)

In my view, seems to be a general British thing.  I believe I may have ranted about this before.

UK: the government are, the team are, Nasa are, etc.
US: the government is, the team is, NASA is, etc.

'Government/team' is a collective, so singular; 'ministers/player' are plural.  Simple, no?

Then again, what do I know? English isn't my first language and I learned it in a former colony.
 

That gives you the great advantage over most of us of having actually learned it.

[iakobski]

Collective nouns cause endless arguments: "The government are..." (seems to be preferred by the BBC), vs " The government is".

Fowler (Author of "Modern English Usage") had great fun with this; it's not just the variant of English in use, but the particular GOVERNMENT!  The US Government is singular, whereas the UK Government are plural.  (I might have that completely the wrong way round.  I'll re-post this when I next have a copy of Fowler in front of me.)

In my view, seems to be a general British thing.  I believe I may have ranted about this before.

UK: the government are, the team are, Nasa are, etc.
US: the government is, the team is, NASA is, etc.

'Government/team' is a collective, so singular; 'ministers/player' are plural.  Simple, no?

Then again, what do I know? English isn't my first language and I learned it in a former colony.
 

Windows are closing
Windows is closing down...

[citoyen]

'Government/team' is a collective, so singular; 'ministers/player' are plural.  Simple, no?

No, I don't think it's quite as simple as that. You have to consider the sense of the noun as well as whether it's literally singular or plural.

When you use team names, especially in the context of commentary, you're using the name as a kind of shorthand*, eg: "Liverpool score against Man United" = "The players of Liverpool FC score against the players of Man United FC."

d.

*Is this an example of metonymy? I'm never quite sure.

[Andrij]

'Government/team' is a collective, so singular; 'ministers/player' are plural.  Simple, no?

No, I don't think it's quite as simple as that. You have to consider the sense of the noun as well as whether it's literally singular or plural.

When you use team names, especially in the context of commentary, you're using the name as a kind of shorthand*, eg: "Liverpool score against Man United" = "The players of Liverpool FC score against the players of Man United FC."

d.

*Is this an example of metonymy? I'm never quite sure.

To my eyes, there's a whole separate issue there.  Does Liverpool always score against ManU?  Sometimes?  Will they in the future? Or are we referring to an event in the past?  If so, "Liverpool scored against ManU". 
 

[mattc]

That's an entirely correct usage of the Footballers Present Tense.

[citoyen]

Does Liverpool always score against ManU?

Only in my dreams...

d.

[Simonb]

That's an entirely correct usage of the Footballers Present Tense.

Newspaper headlines also report events (past events, obviously) in the present tense. It gives them immediacy.

[Ian H]

In answer to whatever the original question was:-

"A number of ..." usually requires a plural verb.  In "A number
of employees were present", it's the employees who were present, not
the number.  "A number of" is just a fuzzy quantifier.  ("A number
of..." may need a singular in the much rarer contexts where it does
not function as a quantifier:  "A number of this magnitude requires
5 bytes to store.")

[Andrij]

That's an entirely correct usage of the Footballers Present Tense.

Ah, like Pirate Present Tense.

Pirate: That’s right! There’s not a man on this ship what knows how to use any tense apart from the present.

Capt: That’s cos you’re pirates! And ever since pirates – begins – pirates only speaks in the present tense, does pirates! First man on this ship as uses the past or pluperfect tense dies where he stands!

Pirate 2: He wouldn’t dare!

BANG

Capt: Or a conditional… And the next one what mentions training days will be keel hauled, dragged beneath the ship til the barnacles rip open his belly and death comes as a merciful blessing, hahahaha!

 
 

[citoyen]

Tbh, I'm not dogmatic about one way being correct and another way being wrong. But I am a stickler for consistency...

Does Liverpool always score against ManU?  Sometimes?  Will they in the future?

You should either use "do" in the first instance or "it" in the second. 

d.

[Andrij]

Tbh, I'm not dogmatic about one way being correct and another way being wrong. But I am a stickler for consistency...

Does Liverpool always score against ManU?  Sometimes?  Will they in the future?

You should either use "do" in the first instance or "it" in the second.

d.

Touché.   It should, of course, be 'it'.
 

[iakobski]

I quite like that idea.  The advertising potential of finger food has barely been tapped.  What next - flyers with your vol-au-vents?

Perhaps this ebay seller has a similar idea...

Brompton Bike With Pannini  | eBay UK

Best not to type your advert when you are hungry

Same root though - pannier = thing to carry your bread in.

[hellymedic]

One-wheeled bikes - AAAARRGGHH!
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-manchester-14051314

[Ian H]

One-wheeled bikes - AAAARRGGHH!
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-manchester-14051314

I'll pair that with 'quad bikes'.

[Wowbagger]

Fed up of? Fed up with, surely?

[rower40]

That's an entirely correct usage of the Footballers Present Tense.

Ah, like Pirate Present Tense.
 

Might I humbly suggest that you mean:

Aarrrrrhh, like Pirate Present Tense.

[toontra]

Ed Milliband needs a new script-writer.  He now uses "people up and down the country" in practically every statement.  Whilst this has always been a staple of Labour politicians, he really is taking it's use to absurd new lengths.

[HTFB]

Ow!

[drossall]

All politicians seem to assume that most people agree with them. Since that's mathematically difficult to achieve, it proves their ability to believe at least one impossible thing before breakfast.

However, it is not particularly edifying to watch debates where this argument is rolled out.