Is it that I is wrong?
A long time ago, on a long winter night with nothing on the telly, Dr B. and I engaged in a moderately heated argument about why one says: "the United States is" and not "the United States are.
I insisted that grammatically it should take the plural, but the singular is used only because they can be seen as an entity. The subject is 'states', it is plural, and 'united' is just an adjective.
Dr B. claimed that it takes the singular because what is understood is "the United States of America", and America is singular. But I might mis-remember, given how long ago it was.
Any thoughts?
Friday 9 March 2007 at 7:08 am
You've slightly mis-quoted me. The "united states" in this context is short for the "united stated of america" and as such relates to the country, not the individual states. As such it is singular not plural.
Friday 9 March 2007 at 3:42 pm
Oh… well now that Dr. B has qualified his comment, I guess he's not so stupid after all and in fact you are both saying the same thing, which is that USA is treated as a singular since (as Dr. B says) it is a country or (as Bitful says) it is a single entity.
So, if you both agree, why were you arguing?
Still lovin' your work.