Is or are & has or have

Question

Which should I use when talking about countries, companies or sports clubs?

GPY · Accepted Answer

Countries themselves are singular ("France is a European country. It has a population of 64 million.") Certain countries whose names appear to be grammatically plural may sometimes be accidentally treated as plural. For example, according to Wikipedia, "the Maldives are ranked the third most endangered nation". In my view this is incorrect. When talking about the islands, the plural would be correct.

In British English, country names may be treated as plural when they are used to designate groups of people, such as sports teams, or other pluralities ("Germany are a good team").

In British English, companies and sports clubs may be treated as either singular or plural, depending on author preference, formality and possibly cues in the surrounding context. It is said that US English tends to prefer singular.

Is or are & has or have

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