article and third person has or have

Question

Hello all. I have two questions.1) Should I be using the before "Infrastructure Support team". Example: Please assign this ticket to the Infrastructure support team.2) My second question is, do I need to use has or have in the following sentences:Infrastructure support has not looked at this ticket yet. I know that She, He and IT we use has but what about proper nouns. Names, company names, teams and etc. Thank you

GPY · Accepted Answer

1) Yes.

I recommend capitalising like this: "the Infrastructure Support Team". At the moment your capitalisation is inconsistent.

2) In BrE you can use either "has" (grammatical agreement) or "have" (logical agreement). I believe that AmE tends to stick to the former in such cases.

Zybastek · Answer

So to confirm, I should be using has when I use proper nouns?

Thanks

Englishmaven · Answer

You do want to use "the" before "Infrastructure Support Team." Remember that you need an article before a singular count noun.

To your other question, and I'm glad you asked it the way you did. You know you need "has" for "he, she, & it," but you were sure about proper nouns. Let me clear this up for you.

In English, a verb has two forms in the present tense (and you are using the present tense form of HAVE in creating the present perfect : has looked, have looked).

The distribution of the present tense forms in English is very simple. The verb has two forms in the present tense: one form that ends in "s" and the other that does not end in "s." The "s" form is used for all 3rd person singular subjects. The other form, without the "s," is used for I, you, and all plurals (which include "we, they" and any plural word.

1st person is the person speaking when s/he refers to her/himself while speaking. That is "I." If I include someone else with me, that is 1st person plural (we).The word "you" is 2nd person. The verb form doesn't change if it is singular or plural. Third person refers to anyone or anything about which we are talking. It doesn't include the speaker or the listener. The third person is not part of the conversation. If it is one person or object, it is 3rd person singular (he, she, it, any singular noun or pronoun). If it is more than one, it is plural (they, them, their, the dogs, the stores, the teachers). We don't care if the words are capitalized or not. Being 3rd person singular is about perspective only. It refers to one person or thing about which we are speaking or writing.

I, you, we, they, politicians, dogs, any plural he, she, it, Madonna, America, any single person or thing

go, have, see, believe, do goes, has, sees, believes, does

We can reduce the rule to this:

Put "s" on the present tense verb when the subject is 3rd person singular. Otherwise, the verb doesn't have the "s."

GPY · Answer

ZybastekSo to confirm, I should be using has when I use proper nouns?

Uusally, but not necessarily. As I said, in BrE we may use plural verbs for proper names that are grammatically singular but "logically" plural. But in these cases, if you are unsure, use the singular verb.

Also, some proper names are grammatically plural. For example, "The Himalayas are a mountain range in Asia", "The Smiths are away on holiday".

article and third person has or have

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