Editing British English (section)

=== People in groups ===
Dropping a morphological [[grammatical number]], in [[collective noun]]s, is stronger in British English than North American English.<ref name="BOD">[https://web.archive.org/web/20111118122015/http://blog.oxforddictionaries.com/2011/09/agreement-over-collective-nouns/], [[Oxford Dictionaries (website)|Oxford Dictionaries]] website, 2 April 2017.</ref> This is to treat them as plural when once grammatically singular, a perceived natural number prevails, especially when applying to institutional nouns and groups of people.

The noun 'police', for example, undergoes this treatment:

{{blockquote|'''Police are''' investigating the theft of work tools worth £500 from a van at the Sprucefield park and ride car park in Lisburn.<ref name=BBC1>[https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-northern-ireland-38547391], [[BBC]], 8 January 2017.</ref>}}

A football team can be treated likewise:

{{blockquote|Arsenal '''have''' lost just one of 20 home Premier League matches against Manchester City.<ref name=BBC2>[https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/39396482], [[BBC]], 2 April 2017.</ref>}}

This tendency can be observed in texts produced already in the 19th century. For example, [[Jane Austen]], a British author, writes in Chapter 4 of ''[[Pride and Prejudice (novel)|Pride and Prejudice]]'', published in 1813:{{blockquote|All '''the world are''' good and agreeable in your eyes.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.gutenberg.org/files/1342/1342-h/1342-h.htm|title=Pride and Prejudice |first1=Jane |last1=Austen |website=The Project Gutenberg |access-date=2020-02-27}}</ref>}} However, in Chapter 16, the grammatical number is used. {{blockquote|'''The world is''' blinded by his fortune and consequence.}}