The hum that helps to fight crime
OT, but I've seen this come up before and I wonder if HN could explain/justify this grammatical curiosity:<p>> <i>"A gang were accused of selling weapons..."</i><p>"A gang" implies a singular entity (gang), but "were" is a pluralized use of was, as if "gang" was plural (as in, 'several gang<i>s</i>'). (I lack the vocabulary to properly articulate myself, since grammar is not my strong suit. I am probably not describing terms completely accurately). I've noticed this more and more in regard to singular forms of entities (typically compromised of many singular parts, such as corporations). For example: "Apple were..." or "Google have..." or "Microsoft are..." I notice that this seems to be more of a British English phenomenon.<p>My question is this: Why are people using what I will call pluralized modifiers on what I would consider singular nouns? What I would consider the "more correct" forms of the above examples are: "The designers at Apple were..." or "Google's board of directors have..." or "Employees of Microsoft are..."<p>Is this just a cultural clash between American and British grammatical conventions, or is there an elusive (to me) practical reason why one version is "better" than the other?<p>I apologize for thread jacking. Hopefully the more relevant comments will rise above this one.