Committee Agreement in a Hospital Newsletter
You are editing the monthly newsletter for a 240-bed hospital. A draft sentence reads: 'The committee of nurses and doctors meet on Tuesdays, and each of the members submit their report before noon.' The newsletter style guide requires formal standard English and says collective nouns may take a singular verb when acting as a unit, but the hospital prefers singular unless the members are clearly acting individually. The sentence describes the committee acting as one body to review policy, though members write reports individually. You must decide the verb for 'committee,' the verb for 'each,' and the pronoun for 'each.'
1. Choose the correct verb for 'committee' and explain how the prepositional phrase affects your choice.
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The grammatical subject is 'committee,' a collective noun. The phrase 'of nurses and doctors' is a prepositional phrase, so it does not control agreement. The setup says the committee acts as one body to review policy, so the hospital's preference for singular applies: 'The committee ... meets.' The plural 'meet' would be defensible only if the sentence emphasized members acting individually, which it does not. The intervening phrase is a common distraction, not the subject.
2. Choose the correct verb and pronoun for 'each of the members' and justify both. If you would rewrite, give the rewrite.
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'Each' is a singular indefinite pronoun, so the verb is 'submits,' not 'submit.' The pronoun should also be singular: 'his or her report.' 'Their' is plural and, in the newsletter's formal standard English, creates agreement trouble. A cleaner rewrite avoids the issue: 'and the members submit their reports before noon.' That version uses a plural subject ('members') with 'their,' which is correct. The choice depends on whether the writer wants to stress individual obligation ('each ... submits his or her') or group action ('members submit their').