0

In Christopher Nolans "Dunkirk" an opening caption appears with the first sentence:

"the enemy have driven the British and French armies to the sea"

My intuition tells me that it should be "the enemy has driven ..." because the enemy is singular.

As I guess that this is not an error, why is it correct?

Kris
  • 37,386
user251210
  • 11
  • 1
  • 4
  • 1
    The grammatical mismatch in number between subject and verb (as in the sentence you quote) is explained in the answer to the following question: https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/161986/question-on-usage-of-clientele – Shoe Aug 06 '17 at 09:14
  • 1
    Possible duplicate of Question on usage of "clientele" – Arm the good guys in America Aug 06 '17 at 14:46
  • 1
    @Clare — Nothing to do with British English. Just the awful modern trend to use plural verbs with singular nouns denoting more than one person. If you search back 50 years you won't find it. – David Aug 07 '17 at 09:18
  • Yes, David… and further, we'd need to be sure whether Nolan meant something singular like Germany or the German Army, or something plural like some of the individual soldiers/units… which is largely a stylistic choice and would depend on what else he said… – Robbie Goodwin Aug 07 '17 at 23:15
  • 2
    @David I searched and found it from at least 1830 (Thomas Jefferson). It was also very common in the 1860s. (Google books) But it's probably not correct to characterize it as British English if we take these usages into account. – Arm the good guys in America Aug 27 '17 at 07:01
  • Ultimately it is grammatical because that's what (at least a large segment of educated) native speakers say. – Arm the good guys in America Aug 27 '17 at 07:05
  • @Clare — Interesting. These things come and (one hopes) go. I complained to the BBC once about using plural verbs with "team" and rather than justification I got the arrogant statement that it was "BBC policy". – David Aug 27 '17 at 07:30
  • I find that it seems to be more of a European affectation than a US one. Both native English and non-native speakers from Europe seem to say things like “BMW have asked for...” whereas Americans would say “BMW has asked for...” – Jim Dec 31 '17 at 03:06
  • "The enemy", in this sense, is pluringular. – Hot Licks Jan 30 '18 at 00:57
  • There are quite a few related posts on this Q&A. Please see the previous posts. – Kris Mar 31 '18 at 07:43
  • @Jim In the UK we would often say things like 'Burnley scored an equalising goal just before full time', would Americans not say 'Pittsburgh touched down in the last five minutes of the game?' – BoldBen Mar 31 '18 at 07:50
  • @BoldBen - (As an aside, we never “verb” touchdown) But the real point is we’d say “Pittsburgh *has* scored in the last 5 minutes of each of its three most recent games” and not “Pittsburgh *have* scored ...” – Jim Mar 31 '18 at 16:45
  • @Jim So you'ld only use , 'have' in the football case if you said 'The Steelers' rather than 'Pittsbugh'? – BoldBen Apr 01 '18 at 15:58
  • @BoldBen - Yes. Interesting, “The Steelers” more clearly refers to the group of players while “Pittsburgh” is a metonym. In my mind anyway. – Jim Apr 01 '18 at 17:18
  • @Jim In the UK we don't really make that distinction, the footy's on telly as I write and the commentator's talking about Burton Albion FC as 'Burton' and using 'they'. Just a difference in the cultures I suppose. – BoldBen Apr 02 '18 at 22:20
  • 1
    Does this answer your question? Are collective nouns always plural, or are certain ones singular? – Edwin Ashworth Feb 05 '22 at 16:18

4 Answers4

0

I have spent HOURS tying to figure this out and I think I've finally come with an answer/explanation that makes sense.

'Enemy', as used in this sentence, is a collective noun. It represents a surplus of people. So the wording IS correct, when you consider that the subject is plural: " The enemy have driven..."

But I got to thinking, when I take another collective plural, such as 'police' and put it into a similar sentence: "The police have driven the suspect into custody", it sounds right. So why does " the enemy have driven..." sound so wrong?

My answer is this: while the word enemy can refer to a single person OR a group of people, my ear/brain recognizes it as singular. Whereas police, I hear and instantly think plural.

So while the phrase is grammatically correct, it sounds wrong to my ears/brain, as I have been trained to view the word in it's singular form rather than it's plural.

Samantha Webb
  • 9
-1

The collective nouns representing a single body are treated as plurals. The words like police, committee, jury etc. written are in singulars (all of these represent a single body or organisation) but are treated as plurals. e.g. The police have caught the terrorists.

Rajinder Goswami
  • 11
  • 3
  • 1
    It can be a problem with grammar checkers and proper nouns where the checker doesn't know that the proper noun is a collective. – rghome Aug 06 '17 at 12:29
-1

The word enemy is singular and therefore refers to a single entity, even if that entity is a nation of a hundred million people. So it's the enemy is, but enemies are.

But sometimes when using the word enemy it is useful in the next sentence to use the word they instead of he or it. They is incorrect but should still be ok given that the enemy does consist of multiple entities, even though it is still a single entity.

bob
  • 1
  • 1
    Your answer could be improved with additional supporting information. Please [edit] to add further details, such as citations or documentation, so that others can confirm that your answer is correct. You can find more information on how to write good answers in the help center. – Community Feb 05 '22 at 03:28
-2

The enemy is a collective noun, which means the ending doesn't exactly appear to be a plural noun but is. Similarly, "the media" is a collective noun. Therefore, one would say "the media are lying to the public," as opposed to "the media is lying to the public" unless, with context, it can be understood that you are referring to one singular media entity as opposed to the entirety of the media.

So, "the enemy are attacking" could be correct if "the enemy" is more than one subject, but "the enemy is attacking" could also be correct assuming there is only one singular entity.

Graham
  • 30
  • Not really comparable. "media" is a Latin plural originally used as an English plural but now often used a singular noun in English. "Enemy" can be unambiguously singular, as when referring to a single person, but when it functions as a collective noun, differences of opinion and confusions abound. – Stuart F Feb 06 '22 at 14:29