[Peter T. Daniels]

That's the way it's said in England. It's not the way it's said here.

Besides, we don't have "tea rooms."

one thing/person/animal = is
more than one thing/person/animal = are

And the staff is one thing. So is the government, and so are sports
teams that aren't named as collections of players -- baseball teams:
the Cubs are, the Yankees are; but in other sports, pro teams are
taking singular names (the Heat, the Fire -- sorry, I don't know what
sports or cities they represent) construed with a singular verb,
unlike your "Manchester United are."

On Mar 4, 8:31*pm, Simon-L wrote:

So if you were talking about the 50 people that work in an office, would you
say "The staff is in the tea room"?
Because the correct way of saying this is "The staff are in the tea room"..

"Peter T. Daniels" wrote:
In the US we say "_The_ staff is ...."-