For instance, we can refer to one sheep or two sheep, but if we have a lot of sheep we refer to the multitude as a flock of sheep. Flock is a collective noun.

Some common collective nouns we see in business writing are board, company, committee, class, corporation, council, department, firm, group, majority, minority, organization, staff, and team. Company names are also treated as collective nouns.

Collective nouns get tricky grammatically because although they represent a group of people, animals or things, we treat them as singular grammatically. At least most the time.

To make things a bit more complicated, Canadian and American grammars treat collective nouns differently from British grammar. Here’s how it works.

The North American Way

1. If the collectivity is acting as a unit where all the members are doing the same thing, treat the collective noun as singular. This is usually the case. So we say The Board of Directors meets on Friday, or The client service team is attending a conference.
2. If the members of the group are acting as individuals, treat the collective noun as a plural. The Board of Directors are coming from all over the country to meet in Winnipeg next month or The committee are signing the contract. We’d also say The team are debating among themselves.

The British Way

1. In Britain, it is more common to pair a collective noun with a plural verb.  “The team have finished the project.” By using the plural verb, the writer stresses the individual members of the team working together to finish the project. Their accomplishment (the project) is collective, and while the emphasis is not on their individual identities, they are at the same time still discrete individuals; the word choice “team have” manages to convey both their collective and discrete identities simultaneously. Pretty subtle, just like that semicolon I just sneaked in.
2. It’s also common in British usage to hear sports broadcasters say things like Madrid are winning the match. In North America, we wouldn’t hear broadcasters say Toronto are taking more shots on net than Montreal.

Practical Advice

If you’re writing to a Canadian or American reader, either use the singular verb. But if you are in doubt or you think the sentence sounds awkward, REWRITE it:

In many cases, it sounds more natural to change the subject to a plural form by adding a word like members:

• The orchestra members are tuning their instruments.
• The cast members have been practising their lines.
• The staff members disagree on the proposal.

Collective Nounds Can be Fun

Here are some wonderful examples of animal collectivities:

Congregation of alligators (or magpies)

Shrewdness of apes

Cloud of bats

Dissimulation of birds

Glaring of cats

Murder of crows

Piteousness of doves

Waddling of ducks

Convocation of eagles

Tower of giraffes

Kettle of hawks (flying in large numbers)

Cackle of hyenas

Plague of insects

Scold of jays

Smack of jellyfish

Exaltation of larks

Barrel of monkeys (I thought this was a game!!)

Parliament of owls

Pandemonium of parrots

Ostentation of peacocks

Murmuration of starlings (fun to say)

“It’s a tricky point, when to use simple present and when to use the progressive, especially as simple present rarely refers to present time.

While the simple present refers to general truths that include the present moment, the present continuous emphasizes action in the present moment.

Here’s how you form it:

I am running.
You/We/They are running.
He/She/It is running.

I am not running.
You/We/They are not running.
He/She/It is not running.

Am I running?
Are you/we/they running?
Is he/she/it running?

While the simple present uses temporal references such as always, frequently, usually, often, or every month, the present continuous is more specific. It uses temporal references such as at the moment, now, today, this week, this month, tomorrow, next week (for future arrangements ), or currently.

The present continuous has three main uses:

1.  Speaking of something happening at the moment of speaking

What are you doing now?

I am calling in response to an brochure I received last week.

I am looking forward to taking on the lead role for the administration of the IOF system. (also I look forward to…)

Mrs Lo is not suffering from a psychiatric impairment arising from the motor vehicle accident.

Whose account are you working on?

2. Expressing actions happening in a period around the present moment especially when you want to emphasize the present moment

He’s spending the summer in Newfoundland.

I can return Lou’s call as soon as I’m finished writing this email. (or …as soon as I finish writing this email.)

I am including revised shipping instructions.

“Life is like playing a violin solo in public and learning the instrument as one goes on. “ Samuel Butler

“No good opera plot can be sensible, for people do not sing when they are feeling sensible.” W. H. Auden

“Success is blocked by concentrating on it and planning for it… Success is shy – it won’t come out while you’re watching.” Tennessee Williams

“If everyone is thinking alike, then somebody isn’t thinking.” George S. Patton

3. Describing future plans and arrangements

We’re having leftovers this evening.

What are you doing tomorrow afternoon?

She isn’t coming on Friday.

Conventional ways to use the present continuous in business writing include

describing current situations and ongoing projects

The Canadian economy is recovering.

We are updating our servers this quarter.

Ted Passmore and Charone Powell are transferring the files to a 30 gig drive, which we will ship to Mantor.

We are presently trying to determine how payroll burden should be applied to overtime hours.

I am writing in reply to your August 6 letter, in which you requested information about Policy 12965. (Extremely formal.)

To serve you better in the future, we are currently upgrading our system.

referring to temporary situations

We are offering a 20% discount this summer.

Able Airplanes is hiring engineers to help them build the six new jets ordered by the Ministry of Defense.

describing trends, developing situations, progress

The number of email users is growing every day.

These buyers are looking for a wide range of products that only a variety merchandise show such as the Canada’s Merchandise and Clearance Expo can provide.

I am in the process of completing the first document for the Windows 7 Menu/Policy project.

In a series of upcoming articles, I’ll be delving deeper (that was future progressive!) into each of the twelve tenses.

What exactly is a verb tense? When you make a statement, you usually have to indicate if you are referring to a situation that exists now, existed in the past or will exist in the future. You will often need to indicate the duration of the action, event or situation. Is it momentary or enduring? You may also need to clearly show the temporal relationship of actions, events and conditions that comprise a situation you are explaining.

A verb expresses the time of an action, event or condition by changing its form. Verbs are helped in this function by temporal references, auxiliary verbs, and modals.

The following chart shows the subtle differences among the 12 English verb tenses.

The following chart of temporal references from the English Grammar Handbook at the Athabasca University site is helpful for seeing the subtle time differences between the verb tenses. It’s a good way to see at a glance which tense you need to express your idea. Notice that there is some overlap between the tenses.

The personal pronoun ‘I’ is always the subject of a sentence, phrase or subordinate clause:

I attended the show. (subject) You wouldn’t say ‘Me attended the show.’

The personal pronoun ‘me’ is used as an object of a sentence, phrase or subordinate clause:

That car belongs to me. (object)

Problems usually arise when personal pronouns are combined with compound word groups. It’s common to hear people say something like

Lorraine went with my family and I to the cottage this weekend.

To test for correctness, strip away all the compound words (in the sentence above ‘my family and’) to see which pronoun is correct. Clearly, it should read

Lorraine went with (my family and) me to the cottage.

Often, business writers use the reflexive pronoun ‘myself,’ in places where the objective case pronoun (me) is required.

Please contact Eddie or myself for more information.

When you remove the compound words ‘Eddie or,’ it’s clear the sentence should read

Please contact (Eddie or) me for more information.

Some of the images are pretty funny:

Other zingers in the book include the nursery selling “Fresh Cut Penis $7.99,” the road sign that reads “Dont’t Drink and Drive,” and some college’s “Homecoming Spirt Week” sign.

On one level, it’s fun to mock bad grammar, spelling and punctuation. It feels good to be part of the elite club that knows better. But the thing is, when you get all snobbish and judgmental it’s pretty much certain you will make your own mistakes, which is exactly what happens to Nichols—she’s gone and misspelled ACKNOWLEGMENTS in her book. And on behalf of all the people she humiliates, her mistake gives me a whole lot of pleasure.

Okay, it’s important to use standard grammar and punctuation. I make a living by teaching people how to do it correctly. I care about grammar and find language endlessly fascinating. I know how poor grammar can erode credibility and inhibit communication.  I feel frustrated when I read bad spelling in restaurant menus, on billboards and especially on expensive signage. I always wonder why they didn’t ask someone to proofread before they went to print? Part of my curse is constantly editing the world around me.

But I’ve learned to be tolerant. Sure, if you constantly confuse their/they’re/there or it’s/its I hope someone points it out because people will judge you for being sloppy, lazy and ignorant. But if you mostly get it right and make mistakes once in a while, I’ll assume you were rushed and forgive you. I’ll focus on your overall message, not on the minor mistake.

I’ve also grown more tolerant of mistakes made by writers who speak English as a second language. Consider the courage it would take to speak and write in a foreign language—consider the minefields! If my life circumstances or choices forced me to speak and write in French, Russian or Chinese I know I’d make tons of mistakes. So I feel sad when these signs are mocked—the writers are doing their best and they deserve some credit for that. Still, how hard is it to check a dictionary?

Do you think I’m getting too soft? What’s your stand on poor grammar?

I would add that you can also be a little ungrammatical if you come from the right country, one where English isn’t the first language.

If you speak and write English as a second, third or fourth language, it’s unrealistic to expect your grammar to be perfect. English is a notoriously difficult language to master—it’s hard enough for native speakers to be perfect.

It’s true that really bad grammar intrudes on a message and distracts the reader from getting the message. But we need to tolerate small mistakes, especially when the writers are ESL.

We find the ESL learners in our writing courses are often insecure about their grammar—they want to be perfect. They are also the most passionate, enthusiastic learners when we cover grammar. This is great, but grammar isn’t everything. In fact, grammar mistakes are often the least important ones writers make. I will gladly overlook small mistakes such as missing articles if you

• communicate your message clearly so I get it the first time I read it
• get to the point quickly—no rambling
• use a tone that’s friendly, concise and positive
• create a clear structure that allows me to scan your message
• anticipate all my questions and answer them
• use plain language and keep things as simple as possible

A: This has actually never been a rule. It’s possible teachers strongly discourage starting sentences with subordinate conjunctions such as ‘because’ since these words often seduce students into writing fragments-more specifically subordinate clause fragments. These fragments are hard to spot because they contain both a subject and a verb. Some English teachers may have extended this bad advice about starting sentences with subordinate conjunctions to starting with coordinate conjunctions such as ‘and’ or ‘but.’

Incorrect: John stopped seeing Mary. Because he wanted to keep his promises to his wife.

Correct: John stopped seeing Mary because he wanted to keep his promises to his wife.

Correct: Because he wanted to keep his promises to his wife, John stopped seeing Mary.

As long as your sentence is a sentence, and not a sentence fragment, it’s okay to start with ‘and,’ ‘but’ or ‘because.’ And in some circumstances, a sentence fragment is very effective. Teaching students never to begin with a conjunction is pure ignorance or laziness. It disrespects them, confuses them and robs them of stylistic options.

So use your judgment, and when you think it adds value to your message, go ahead and start your sentence with a conjunction.

“Your use of the words ‘secondly’ and ‘thirdly’ makes me cringe. Your writing was the last place I expected to see this.”

I did indeed write First of all, Secondly, Thirdly and Finally. But is my reader upset because I used secondly and thirdly (formal, old fashioned?) or because I abandoned parallel structure and didn’t use firstly?

Funny thing is I never use firstly, yet I’m comfortable using secondly and so on. Mainly I do that because I would speak that way. Secondly (ha) because it’s a perverse little nod to something odd and funny I read years ago in Fowler’s Modern English Usage. Fowler has this to say:

“First(ly), secondly, lastly. The preference for first over firstly is one of the harmless pedantries in which those who like oddities because they are odd are free to indulge, provided that they abstain from censuring those who do not share the liking. It is true that the Prayer Book, in enumerating the causes for which matrimony was ordained, introduces them with Firstly, Secondly, Thirdly; it is true that De Quincey labels it ‘your ridiculous and most pedantic neologism of firstly“; but the boot is on the other leg now. It is the pedant that begins his list with first; no one does so by the light of nature; it an artificialism. Idioms grow old like other things, and the idiom-book of a century hence will probably not even mention first, secondly.”

This extract from Webster’s Dictionary of Usage explains that in Fowler’s time, firstly was new and controversial. Thanks to him, it became acceptable usage. But while modern commentators admit that firstly is acceptable, they still prefer first because it is shorter and the more common word. Firstly is rarely used except to begin a list and is more British than American.

Today,  it is well established that either first or firstly can be used to begin an enumeration: Our objectives are, first (or firstly), to recover from last year’s slump. Any succeeding items should be introduced by words parallel to the form that is chosen, as in first . . . second . . . third or firstly . . . secondly . . . thirdly.

But Webster’s Usage cites many instances of inconsistency, and concludes with this advice: “…while we do not suggest you be purposely inconsistent, it does appear that consistency in this specific usage has not always had a particularly high regard with good writers.”

I use first because firstly seems antique. I know I’d never say it. But I would say secondly and thirdly, and that’s why I use them in my writing. From now on, though I resolve to use First, Second, Third. Better still, I’ll try to use a numbered list.

The question is, can like be a conjunction? According to strict traditionalists, like is never a conjunction and it is always wrong to use like instead of as or as if.

In 1954, when the Winston commercial came out, many people became aware of the two options. Prescriptivists criticized the ad for its usage, claiming the as or as if construction was more proper. During the campaign’s long run in the media, many criticized the slogan as ungrammatical and claimed it should say, “Winston tastes good as a cigarette should.” The Wikipedia entry on this topic reports that Ogden Nash, in The New Yorker, published a poem that ran “Like goes Madison Avenue, like so goes the nation.” And Walter Cronkite, then hosting The Morning Show, refused to say the line as written and an announcer was used instead.

Then, in the fall of 1961, a small furor enveloped the literary and journalistic communities when Merriam-Webster published its Third New International Dictionary. In the dictionary, the editors refused to condemn the use of like as a conjunction, and cited “Winston tastes good like a cigarette should” as an example of popular colloquial use. After publication of Webster’s Third, The New York Times called the edition “bolshevik,” and the Chicago Daily News wrote that the transgression signified “a general decay in values.”

Winston countered with another ad, featuring a woman with greying hair in a bun who insists that the slogan ought to be “Winston tastes good as a cigarette should” and is shouted down by happy cigarette smokers asking “What do you want — good grammar or good taste?”

Certainly this controversy didn’t hurt cigarette sales. Malcolm Gladwell in The Tipping Point, says that this ungrammatical and provocative use of like instead of as created a minor sensation in 1954 and implies that the phrase itself was responsible for vaulting the brand to second place in the U.S. market. Winston overtook Pall Mall cigarettes as the #1 cigarette in the United States in 1966, while the advertising campaign continued to make an impression on the mass media.

We’re seeing the same kind of controversy today over the commercial: You don’t drive like her so why are you paying the same insurance premiums as her? Read our post about this. We’ll see if grammatical controversy can be as good for car insurance sales as it was for cigarette sales.

“My mother’s family were very concerned about using correct grammar.  Short of knowing (remembering) the rules, I use some guidelines they gave to help me.

“When people say “give it to him and I, they should simply think what it sounds like if you drop out the “him and.”  Clearly we wouldn’t say give it to I.  Likewise, we shouldn’t say “give it to him and I”.

“A trickier issue for me – There is currently an advertisement on TV that goes something like this: “You don’t drive like her, why should you pay the same insurance premiums she pays.”  My “rule” says that if you extend the sentence to say what is understood, correct use of words will become apparent.  So, the sentence becomes “You don’t drive like she drives….”  According to my rule, the advertisement should say “you don’t drive like she….”  To me that clearly sounds awkward and incorrect.  Is my rule wrong?”

Answer: This is a great question that raises all kinds of fun grammatical and stylistic controversies. First of all, the advertisement in question is “You don’t drive like her so why are you paying the same insurance premiums as her?” It’s from a commercial for Trafalgar Insurance as part of the Grey Power campaign.

There are two ways to analyze this grammatically: first, by assuming like and as are used as conjunctions, and second, by assuming like and as are used as prepositions.

Like and As as Conjunctions: If these words are conjunctions, they function by joining things that balance, such as two clauses. This means you’d need to extend the idea on both sides of the conjunction, so the sentence in question becomes “You don’t drive like her (drives), so why are you paying the same insurance premiums as her (pays)?” Clearly wrong. If these words are conjunctions, we’d instead use the subject case of the pronoun (she instead of her): You don’t drive like she (drives) so why are you paying the same insurance premiums as she (pays)? But “You don’t drive like she so why are you paying the same insurance premiums as she?” sounds wrong to our ears, even though we can see the grammatical logic.

Like and As as Prepositions: As prepositions, these words show the relationship between things. In this case, we’d choose the object case of the pronoun (her instead of she): You would say “I live beside her” or “I am like her.” By extension, “You don’t drive like her so why are you paying the same insurance premiums as her?” makes sense.

But Can Like and As Actually Be Prepositions? This is the real question and the source of the controversy. For strict traditionalists, as is a conjunction—not a preposition—and the personal pronoun that follows must be the subject of a clause, which isn’t necessarily completed. Thus “No one could be as happy as I (can be happy).” or “I can’t handle stress as well as she (can handle stress).” To most of us, this sounds odd.

Further, strict traditionalists do not consider like to be a conjunction at all, and its appropriateness is still disputed. In some circles it is considered a faux pas to use like instead of as or as if, whereas in other circles (the vast majority of circles) as sounds stilted. Read about the controversy caused by the famous jingle: Winston Tastes Good Like a Cigarette Should.

Other grammarians have argued, however, that these words often function as prepositions, not conjunctions, and have been used that way for centuries by many good writers. In a structure such as “My mother is a lot like her,” we have no trouble recognizing that like functions as a preposition and we need the object form of the pronoun after it. Such usage is now regarded as acceptable in all but the most formal writing.

So what’s right? That depends on whether you want to be understood or get good marks in a test. If your purpose is to make a grammatical point, then use she. I promise you will alienate 98% of your readers. (There I go, making up statistics again.) Using extremely formal grammar might be correct, but it isn’t necessarily right. I say use her—it’s good common usage and it’s understood by all. The thing is to know the rules, and then break them if you have a good reason. Don’t you think making an emotional connection with your audience is an excellent reason to sacrifice grammatical purity?