None of them is in agreement From: The Sunday Telegraph London | Date: March 30, 2003 | Copyright 2003 The Sunday Telegraph London. Provided by ProQuest LLC.Copyright information

Your many contributions to the debate on the use of singular and plural verbs (Letters, March 16 & 23, News, March 16) have been based on subjective views or hearsay, with not one citation of a documented authority. The textbook which I used at grammar school, Lancelot Oliphant's A Matriculation and General English Course, published in 1928, asserts that "collective nouns in the singular may be followed by a verb in the singular or plural, according as we regard a thing as an undivided whole, or as consisting of individuals that compose the whole", with the examples: "The mob was now ...

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