Subject–Verb Agreement with Collective and Joined Subjects
In a Standard 7 English lesson at a school in Serowe, the class is editing a paragraph about a football match. The paragraph reads: "The team are playing well today. The coach and the captain is happy. Neither the players nor the coach were late. Each of the players have a water bottle." The teacher, Ms. Mpho, asks pupils to decide which sentences are correct and which need changing. One pupil says all four are wrong because the verbs look unusual. Another says none are wrong because the meaning is clear. Ms. Mpho wants the class to identify the subject of each sentence first, then decide whether the verb agrees with it, and to explain any case where more than one answer may be acceptable.
1. For each of the four sentences, state whether the verb agrees with its subject and correct any that do not.
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- "The team are playing well today." In British and Botswana school usage, collective nouns like team may take a plural verb when the members are thought of individually, so "are" can be acceptable. Many teachers prefer "is" for the group as a unit. Either can be defended, but the class should be told the reason. 2. "The coach and the captain is happy." The subject is joined by and, so it is plural. Correct: "The coach and the captain are happy." 3. "Neither the players nor the coach were late." With neither...nor, the verb usually agrees with the nearer subject, the coach, which is singular. Correct: "Neither the players nor the coach was late." 4. "Each of the players have a water bottle." Each is singular, so the verb should be has: "Each of the players has a water bottle."
2. A pupil claims that sentence 1 cannot be judged because "team" can be singular or plural. Explain how you would decide and what advice you would give the writer.
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The pupil is partly right: team is a collective noun, and the verb can be singular or plural depending on whether the writer sees the group as one unit or as individuals. The decisive question is what the sentence emphasises. "The team are playing well" stresses the individual players performing, while "The team is playing well" treats the team as a single side. Both are defensible in British-influenced usage. The advice is to be consistent within a piece of writing and to follow the teacher's or exam's preferred style. For a formal school report, "The team is playing well" is the safer choice because it treats the group as one unit. The judgement call is to justify the choice by meaning and consistency, not to call the sentence simply wrong.