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  • Hi, I'm Dan from BBC Learning English

  • and today I'm going to tell you something about collective nouns.

  • Collective nouns are often called group nouns.

  • That is because they represent a number of things together.

  • Examples are:

  • government, family and team.

  • So, what's the big deal?

  • The special thing about these collective nouns

  • is that they can be singular or plural.

  • If you consider your family to be a group of individuals,

  • then the pronoun is they and the verb is plural.

  • My family are happy.

  • But your family can also be considered as a single unit,

  • a machine that all works together.

  • In this case, the pronoun is it and the verb is singular.

  • My family is happy.

  • This does not apply to all collective nouns,

  • so be careful.

  • Police and staff are always plural.

Hi, I'm Dan from BBC Learning English

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