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:> "A gang were accused of selling weapons...""A gang" implies a singular entity (gang), but "were" is a pluralized use of was, as if "gang" was plural (as in, 'several gangs'). (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.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..."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?I apologize for thread jacking. Hopefully the more relevant comments will rise above this one.