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I heard a person on television say the following...

"Pittsburgh need to win this game."

To me, this sounds incorrect. I think it should be "needs to." If however, the announcer had said...

"The Steelers need to win this game."

it sounds right to me. So, I have always gone by the following

plural = need; singular = needs

However, this again does not make sense for some words (e.g. I = need). Is there some hard and fast rule on when need should be used vs. needs?

APrough
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    I need, We need, You need, He needs, They need. 1st/2nd person = need. 3rd person singular = needs. 3rd person plural = need. I would say Pittsburgh needs to win this game because Pittsburgh is singular and 3rd person. The Pittsburgh players need to win this game because players is plural and 3rd person. – Jeffrey Kemp Nov 19 '14 at 13:08
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    Was the announcer British by any chance? In BrE, sometimes organizations which AmE would treat as singular are treated as plural. – Dan Bron Nov 19 '14 at 13:11
  • @Dan Bron, no not British, but a retired American football player. – APrough Nov 19 '14 at 13:14
  • Sometimes groups are ambiguously plural. I would guess this is a duplicate but I don't know what of. – curiousdannii Nov 19 '14 at 13:29
  • @Dan Bron ~ you would be surprised how many supposed BrEng/AmEng differences vanish like the morning mist once you start digging into them. There are many factors affecting the selection of singular or plural nouns, some linguistic, some social, some psychological. Being British or American is well down the list – Roaring Fish Nov 19 '14 at 14:24

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