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Graham Mayor Graham Mayor is offline
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Posts: 19,312
Default Not happy with "The staff are happy" OR "The staff is happy"

Language evolves - what in my reply would suggest that I believed something
different?
In the UK, very little attention appears to be paid to the teaching of
English grammar, which was not the case 50 years ago when I was at school.
Then there would have been less confusion. Now we have graduates who cannot
use the mother tongue with any degree of competence.

--

Graham Mayor - Word MVP

My web site www.gmayor.com
Word MVP web site http://word.mvps.org


Robert wrote:
Terry

Contrary to what Graham seems to believe, usage evolves by its very
nature, historically, and geographically.

And determining what is the current usage in a given area requires
deep statistical and linguistical analysis, which few people are able
or willing to do.

In any case who would bother to follow their recommendations?

Robert

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On Sat, 16 Jun 2007 16:00:28 +0100, Terry Farrell wrote:

Robert

That just about covers every possibility. It could be summed up as
'anything goes.'

Terry Farrell