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Peterchan Posted 7 years ago
Grammar

Collective noun? Is or are?

Hi there,

Thanks for reading my post. I was drafting a assignment before but unsure if I drafted it correctly relating to the usage of “is/are” below-


ABC Limited and its subsidiaries (“the Company”) is a well-established consultancy company in Singapore which...”


I was thinking for a long time if I should use “is” or “are” in the sentence. It was hard because ABC limited and its subsidiaries is Plural so “are” should be used, but I used the Company which refers to both ABC Limitrd and the subsidiaries so singular should be used? I really don’t know and will be thankful if somebody can help me with this? Tks


Peter Teoh


  

Top answer

This sort of thing happens a lot in English. I usually recast to avoid the problem. In this case, "the Company" has no bearing on the matter because it is inside parentheses which wall it off completely from the rest of the grammar.

— Anonymous

  • This sort of thing happens a lot in English.
  • I usually recast to avoid the problem.
  • In this case, "the Company" has no bearing on the matter because it is inside parentheses which wall it off completely from the rest of the grammar.
  • ” I see a problem of sense that I can't fix without knowing more.
  • Why mention the subsidiaries right there?
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2 Answers
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This sort of thing happens a lot in English. I usually recast to avoid the problem.

In this case, "the Company" has no bearing on the matter because it is inside parentheses which wall it off completely from the rest of the grammar. You're left with "ABC Limited and its subsidiaries is a well-established consultancy company in Singapore which...” I see a problem of sense that I can't fix

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ABC Limited and its subsidiaries (“the Company”) is a well-established consultancy company in Singapore which ...

Singular agreement is normal here, and is motivated by the singular predicative complement "a well-established consultancy company in Singapore which ...".

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