English Language Articles

We mentioned collective nous, and said why they are so interesting. In this text we will see what is the fuss about measles, means, Mathematics and luggage.

Collective nouns denote a group, or collection, of people or things (Casell 45). If they refer to physical things it is easier to decide about verb form that follows them, because these nouns can be either singular or plural – at least most of them.

Singular collective nouns

Litter, luggage

The verb that follows nouns litter and luggage must be in singular form, and they are always singular.

Examples: Luggage is any number of bags, cases and containers which hold a traveller’s articles during transit. (English Wikipedia) Litter is primarily a result of human neglect and poor waste management (…). (PR Newswire)

Plural collective nouns

People, police

These nouns are plural in meaning (they refer to more that one person), so they must be used with the verb in plural.

Examples: He said people are warning us about a loss of confidence. (Fox News) Police are looking for leads in the case and are asking the public’s help in capturing the pair (…). (The Rolla Daily News)

However, if they denote several persons, how do we talk about one person only? We must use forms like:

a member of a police or
a piece of luggage

Example: Time doesn’t really matter to a piece of luggage, nor does comfort. (MIT TR)

Everyone should be careful to use a singular pronoun with singular nouns in their writing. — William Safire

People and peoples

Please note that if you wish to talk about “the human beings of a particular nation, community or ethnic group” use word peoples. For example the indigenous peoples of Australia. Word people means “any group of human beings (men, women or children) collectively”, for example old people or there were at least 200 people in the audience. (Princeton WN).

Examples: Listen to indigenous peoples (Public Service); James O’Donnell, author of the book “Ohio’s First Peoples,” said, “Native peoples’ assistance was instrumental to European settlers in finding the high ground (…) (The Lantern); Ancient History in depth: Peoples of Britain (The BBC)

Plural nouns treated as singular

What a surprise, we have got these as well. They denote singular item although they “look” like plural.

Names of sciences

Words like mathematics or physics can sometimes be considered singular (Thomson 27), and here are the examples:

His mathematics are weak.
Mathematics is an exact science. (Thomson 27)

Linguistics looks at what we actually read and write, and tries to explain why.
Don’t let anyone say politics is not about personalities. (Allen 14)

Aside from names of sciences, we have other plural nouns treated as singular, such as certain diseases: mumps, rickets, shingles; some games: billiards, darts, draughts, bowls, dominoes.

Example: The news is good.

If you are wondering what is the “singular” of news, it is: a piece of news! Example: “It’s an immense piece of news for the club and for the player that Messi is renewing his contract (…)” (BBC Sport)

Data – singular or plural?

Noun data is “singular mass noun when the emphasis is on its collective or cumulative nature” (Allen 15). Example: We need to be sure that our data is in a form that can be used by other institutions. Data is sometimes used in plural in “contexts where the individuality of the items of information is important, or when language purists insist on its full grammatical value, although it sounds awkward of affected” (Allen 16):  Data have been obtained from some 1500 diary respondents.

Means and means

As if this was not enough, there is a noun that defies all the above: means. It is plural in form, but it can be used with verb in plural or singular, which depends on words used with the noun. So, it can be a means of or various means of.

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That is all for now about collective nouns. Maybe we could mention notional subject in the context of  collective nouns, but that might be in one of the future texts. Please refer to Books & References page to see which resources were used in writing of this text. Also, feel free to post useful links in the comments.

Words amaze us. No matter whether  they are frequent ones, like the or book, or less frequent like puzzy-wallah, pingle, zoo daddy, cachinnate.  Say what?

Adam Jacot de Boinod wrote book The Wonder Of Whiffling, about less frequent and amusing words in English language and invites us to “discover all sorts of words you’ve always wished existed but never knew”.

Book by Adam Jacot de Boinod

Here are the meanings: puzzy-wallah -  man inordinately fond of jam; pingle – to move food about on the plate for want of an appetite; zoo daddy – divorced father who rarely sees his child or children (he takes his kids to the zoo when exercising his visiting rights); cachinnate – to laugh loudly and immoderately

The Wonder of Whiffling is a tour of English around the globe (with fine coinages from our English-speaking cousins across the pond, Down Under and elsewhere). – the Author

After his first book about language, The Meaning of Tingo, Adam explored even more about English language to publish The Wonder Of Whiffling. You can visit the author’s site here.

Fresh ideas are welcome, especially in learning and acquiring new (foreign) language. We present here one of the reinvigorated approaches in online language learning – Busuu.com, free language community that speaks in English, Italian, French, German and Spanish language.

Internet is hefty media and we have witnessed its power unleashed in vast world of social sites, visited by millions of users daily. They are bases on new concept called Web 2.0 and introduce great amount of pictures, sounds, videos, comments and communication. Some of the concepts are used in Bosuu.com and we are here to give you an overview of how this service can help you learn new language.

Busuu.com is created as an online meeting place around interactive courses, lessons and exercises where you can talk and collaborate with natives speakers.

Let there be Tree

When you register you will have your own Learning Garden that list all languages you learn as trees which grow gradually as you progress through the courses. It is a great visual tool that motivates younger learners but those mature as well. You will be rewarded with small tokens that symbolize your progress. It is also possible to take a look of other peoples’ threes and see their progress.

Busuu main page with Language Tree

Languages on Busuu Tree – French, Italian, German

Four languages are available at this moment: French, Italian, German and English and the staff announced plans for adding more, even the elusive Busuu language the site is named after.

For each language there are several ways to go through the lessons. You can do them one by one, by choosing the level of difficulty or by selecting the grammar sections or topics that interests you.

New words are presented with an image which helps in acquiring, especially for visual types of learners. Of course, you can hear the word spoken by native speaker, and if you are a premium user, you can hear it in the context (an utterance). This will greatly help you master your pronunciation and get sentence rhythm.

Premium users can download lessons in PDF, print it and work offline – this is not available for common users.

It would be more interesting and of more benefit to have different lessons for each language: here the content is the same, only in different language. This negatively affects motivation in some users, wile others will appreciate familiar context. However, acquiring foreign language is also learning about culture and differences, and users all over the world would appreciate diversity in this globalized society. It would be very refreshing to learn about Maria from Sicily or Amelie and Jacques from Paris…

Test and mistakes

After the vocabulary training and short texts you can work on tests and see how well you are doing. The things that you find more difficult will be saved, so you can review later.

The name of the site comes from the Busuu language of Cameroon, which according to an ethnological study from the 80ies is only spoken by 8 people.

Multiple-choice comprehension test, one of many test teypes on Busuu

Hidden value and native speakers

One of the best things about Busuu is the interaction between native speakers and learners of foreign language. This “linguistic productivity” and communication is essential for successful acquisition of a new language.

In some lessons learners have to write on a topic in the language they are learning. This is not daunting as it seems because useful phrases are available and “students” must be creative and work on their own. Learners’ written work is then available for native speakers to edit and show mistakes. This great interaction can further be enhanced by voice chat and webcams – chat windows even contain useful phrases for conversation.

We really hope that this interactive “native speakers – learners” system will further be improved because of all its potential.

Go for it!

Would we suggest Busuu.com? Definitely. Go and meet people, share views and talk – in foreign language. Gauge your progress in Busuu Garden, and let friendly commnity of native speakers help you in your learning.

Busuu.com is a free online community for learning languages. Users have access to audio-visual learning material covering several topics. Additionally, language skills can be directly improved together with native speakers from around the world. Users connect via an integrated video-chat with other users of the community while at home. Each user is not only “student” of a foreign language but also a “teacher” of his own mother tongue. The start-up was founded in Madrid at the beginning of 2008. The company has been nominated Official Project of the UNESCO during the International Year of Languages. - from Busuu.com.