"England (have/has) been the weaker side..."?

Asked Mar 26 '19 at 19:06

Active Mar 26 '19 at 20:27

Viewed 77 times

It is written in the online Cambridge Dictionary:

England have definitely been the weaker side in the first half of the game.

While Grammarly.com corrected the sentence to:

England has definitely been the weaker side in the first half of the game.

Which version is the correct one?

edited Mar 26 '19 at 20:27

asked Mar 26 '19 at 19:06

b2ok

1

You may find the answer in this question on ELL, which is a duplicate of another similar one. – Learning Equals Success Mar 26 '19 at 19:17
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See e.g. Is “staff” singular or plural?. This simply boils down to whether you interpret England to be plural (as representing the members of the team) or singular (the team as a unitary whole). Nowadays, American English almost always treats collective nouns as singular. – choster Mar 26 '19 at 19:17
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This question comes up about twice a week. – Michael Harvey Mar 26 '19 at 19:35

0 Answers0