Japan refuse to ban colonial rising sun flag at Olympics as spat with Korea deepens
Why is “refuse” used instead of “refuses”?
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1In the UK, ie in British English, they treat some kinds of groups as plural which American English treats as singular. Like corporate entities, sports teams, or in this case a country. American English would say “Citibank hires new CEO”; in the UK they’d say “Citibank hire a new CEO”. – Dan Bron Sep 05 '19 at 22:18
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2A: It's a headline. B: It's British English, where sometimes organizations are regarded as plural. It's fairly normal to hear "The XXX Team are..." when sports are discussed on BBC radio. – Hot Licks Sep 05 '19 at 22:19
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@DanBron - I think it's the other way around, mostly. In the OP's example "Japan" is being treated as plural. – Hot Licks Sep 05 '19 at 22:21
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It would have been nice to reply in an answer not in comment. Nevertheless, I understand, thank you! – None Sep 05 '19 at 22:52
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1@JanusBahsJacquet - Yep. I misread it. – Hot Licks Sep 05 '19 at 23:30
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1There's also the possibility that it's a typo. The reason I say that is that while it's typical for Brits to say "Arsenal are undefeated" as the name "Arsenal" represents a plurality of members of a football club, it's not typical for Brits to do that with countries, unless it's a country name appearing as the name of a football team or something like that. So Brits would say "Germany were defeated" if referring to, say, the German national football team losing a match but would say "Germany was defeated" to convey the country Germany losing World War II. "Japan" here seems like the latter. – Benjamin Harman Sep 06 '19 at 01:56