What Is A Collective Noun? | And How to Use Them With Examples

What Is a Collective Noun?

A collective noun is a word or/ and phrase that refers to a group or thing as an entity. A common error that results from the use of collective nouns is subject-verb disagreement: Writers are often confused about whether to consider a collective noun as singular or plural. Although collective nouns are mostly considered singular, there are exceptions.

Collective nouns represent more than 1 (one) person or thing in a class. It is not possible to have only a lion in pride and not even a flower makes a bouquet. Thus, a collective noun always describes the plural of 1 (one) or the other. Let’s get started!

Collective Noun Examples

Remember that nouns are naming words for people, animals, places and things. Collective nouns have their own in a class. Once you read these examples, it will be much easier to identify them when you look at the collective nouns.

(More types of Noun and Definition)

There are:

• Our school took a field trip to the Museum of Natural History.
• The swarm of bison ran across the prairie, leaving a huge dust cloud under its influence.
• We eagerly awaited the jury's verdict.
• This year’s basketball team includes 3 (three) players who are over 6 feet tall.
• The American army was finally defeated at Waterloo.
• The town council has approved plans to build a new park.
• She comes from a huge family: she’s the oldest of eleven kids.
• The rock group was on tour for several months.
• When Elvis appeared on stage, the audience applauded loudly.

How to Use Collective Nouns

Subject– verb agreement in English is complex. When you have to deal with excitement, gender, numbers, irregular verb forms (what do I need?) These Education Sciences Topic pieces are not easy to assemble properly.

To add another layer of difficulty, collective nouns are clever little pieces of Education Sciences Topic that introduce more challenges to achieving subject– verb agreement.

Collective nouns are used for a group and can include people, places, ideas or things like other nouns. Some examples of collective nouns include congregation, group, committee, public, pack, minority, audience, jury, and band.

The strategy is/ are when trying to figure out how to use collective nouns, the question of whether you use singular or plural verbs depends on whether you are writing in American or British English.

Are Collective Nouns Singular or Plural?

In most cases, collective nouns use single verbs such as my family is weird. If the collective noun is plural it uses a plural verb such as two (2) families hating each other. So far so good. However, if group members do not work together, it is better to use plural verbs.

• Generally, collective nouns are singular, although they refer to more than one (1) person or thing.
• Example, "Army" refers to a group of individuals. However, the word itself is singular.
• Therefore, singular verb forms are usually required for collective nouns.

Example of Singular

1. The army attacked the camp. It succeeded in defeating the enemy.
1. "It" is the correct pronoun for "army" because the group itself is a single thing.
2. The army attacked the camp.
2. “Attacks” is a singular conjugation for the verb “to attack”

[Sometimes, a collective noun can be plural.]

Examples of Plural

1. The families present the baseball game.
1. "Present" is a plural conjugation for the verb “to present”
2. The families presented the baseball game. They enjoyed their day.
2. “They/ their” are/ is the correct pronouns for “families” because group is plural.

Conclusion

Collective nouns are an important part of English. It can help you describe specific groups of people, animals and things. While it’s easy to use common collective nouns like “group” to mean everything, it will not help you expand your vocabulary. Memorize some "or even all" of the above collective nouns, you can greatly improve your English speaking and writing!

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