How do UK speakers deal with non-named entities? For example:
My family is/are going out to the movie.
The class was/were getting restless.
These are common gotchas on the SAT in the US; one of their favorite tricks is using plural country names, like "The United States of America (is/are) ...", where in US English "is" is the correct version. Cheap trick that really only tests whether you've memorized ETS's stance on that particular grammar point, IMO, but that's the SAT for you...
"The United States of America (is/are) ...", where in US English "is" is the correct version.
Interesting, I didn't know that. I'd have presumed that one would use "is" when referring to the country, and "are" when referring to the group of states. Is this incorrect? (for what it's worth, I'm from the UK ;)
Sorry to reply to myself, but I actually forgot to put my main point in, which was that British English generally refers to the group itself as the entity, whereas it seems that American English refers to the group elements individually.
How do UK speakers deal with non-named entities? For example:
My family is/are going out to the movie. The class was/were getting restless.
These are common gotchas on the SAT in the US; one of their favorite tricks is using plural country names, like "The United States of America (is/are) ...", where in US English "is" is the correct version. Cheap trick that really only tests whether you've memorized ETS's stance on that particular grammar point, IMO, but that's the SAT for you...