Foscari - Dipartimento di Scienze Ambientali, Informatica e Statistica

Our family isn’t rich any more. (family as unit)
My family are perfectly normal. (members of the family)
The names of many organisations are collective nouns, and can be used with singular or plural verbs
and pronouns:
The UN has decided to maintain its peace-keeping force in Kosovo (a collective decision)
The BBC want to test new programming schedules (various departments)
Other collective nouns include:
bank government press
company committee public
council management staff
union population team
Italy, England etc. as the national sports teams
FRACTIONS AND PERCENTAGES
A singular verb is used when talking about fractions of a single thing:
Two-thirds of the earth’s surface is covered in water.
80 per cent of goods traffic is transported by road.
30% of mail is sent via internet
A plural verb is used when talking about fractions of a number of things:
Half of the country's workers are below the poverty line.
50% of e mails are spam.
PERCENTAGES
Plural verb forms are used with percentages referring to plural nouns.
Ten per cent of the people earn so little that they cannot feed themselves.
80 per cent of patents were granted to lone investors.
Percentages and fractions can be used on their own as noun groups when it
is clear what they refer to:
Only 10 in 100 people speak a third language whereas
30 in 100 speak a third language.
30 in 100 has a plural verb as it denotes a percentage of people.
OTHER QUANTIFYING EXPRESSIONS
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