Re: Collective Nouns - Married couple.
njc wrote:
Doesn't sound wierd to me.
So... what if the 'couple' in question are a couple of sheeps? 
26 2018-03-07 13:49:59 (edited by kraptonite 2018-03-07 13:51:14)
- kraptonite
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- C. Langley
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Re: Collective Nouns - Married couple.
LOL...Then, the question would be...
What if the couple in question is a couple of sheep?
Wow.
- j p lundstrom
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Re: Collective Nouns - Married couple.
Imagine, if you will, you are looking through a telescope. That couple far away from you appear as a unit. That couple moves as one, sits as one, acts as one. Use the singular forms to talk about the couple as a unit.
On the other hand, the couple near to you are seen very distinctly to be two individuals, not one unit. They laugh, they walk, they stop to sit on a bench. They are a couple, but they are two. Use the plural forms.
This is not a rule of grammar--this is how I see the writing task.
29 2018-03-07 22:56:30 (edited by kraptonite 2018-03-07 23:04:06)
- kraptonite
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Re: Collective Nouns - Married couple.
Worth reflecting upon, I'd say. For at least a couple of moment.
Although, I feel that you might be confusing a telescope with a kaleidoscopes.
30 2018-03-09 19:20:08 (edited by j p lundstrom 2018-03-09 19:20:37)
- j p lundstrom
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Re: Collective Nouns - Married couple.
kraptonite wrote:
I feel that you might be confusing a telescope with a kaleidoscopes.
lol. Nice one!
- RLMB
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Re: Collective Nouns - Married couple.
Hi all,
For what it's worth, I worked as an SAT tutor for a few years, and this exact problem was used to trip up students regarding subject/verb agreement. The people creating the test knew that a singular subject containing multiple units (e.g. "a couple") would sound best with a plural verb. And then they would ding students for the wrong answer. So just tossing that out there--the SAT would say that since the subject is singular (it doesn't matter what comes after the subject, "a couple of _______," because the "of ________ " just modifies the singular subject), the verb must match. They call these words "collective nouns." So we can take or leave that.
As for the second discussion--how right do we need to be?--I would say it comes down to the voice of your narrator. Obviously, if you're writing in 1st-person, you've already considered the voice of your narrator, including the formality and precision of their speech. But even in 3rd-person, the voice is critical. So for me, personally, it's not necessarily about what sounds right or what is right. It's about who is telling the story and how to best capture their voice.
Cheers!
