Maddox accused him of having sold a seat' or, 'It refused to hear evidence.' But, we must be uniform in our use of the Pronoun in this respect. Collective Nouns that only use one word but can represent members as a whole unit.'Nouns of number, or multitudes, such as Mob, Parliament, Rabble, House of Commons, Regiment, Court of King's Bench, Den of Thieves, and the like, may have Pronouns agreeing with them either in the singular or in the plural number for we may, for instance, say of the House of Commons, 'They refused to hear evidence against Castlereagh when Mr. Collective Nouns that only use one wordĢ. a school of Herrings / other small fishĬollective nouns of animals 2.a glossary of difficult, words / phrasesĬollective Nouns of things.Collective Nouns of PeopleĬollective Nouns of People ii. that can be classified as people, things, and creatures: i. Collective Nouns that use prepositions as groupings, such as a flock of , a herd of , etc. Collective Nouns that use prepositions as groupingsġ. There are 2 kinds of Collective Noun, namely : 1. To enrich the Collective Noun collection, see the following examples of collective Nouns. There are many kinds of Collective Nouns. Most Collective Nouns use certain terms and are different in grouping units.įor example, a swarm of fish and a swarm of sheep, although both use the word a bunch, but the English version is different, namely: a school of fish (a bunch of fish), and a herd of sheep (a bunch of sheep).

The family are discussing about the plan. (In this sentence, the family is used to represent the words of the family members, for that, the family word is no longer considered as a whole unit, but rather the involvement of its members in the discussion.).The family is planning an overseas trip. (In this sentence, the family word is considered as a whole unit, so the verb used is a singular verb is.).Collective Nouns if considered as a whole unit, then the verb used is singular. If it is seen separately from each member, it is no longer considered as a whole unit, then the verb used is plural. Consider the following brief example to clarify understanding of the relationship of Collective Nouns with Singular and Plural verbs:

What is collective noun