Ask the English Teacher

When English is correct but awful

Stanley Fish, writing in the New York Times, has a wonderful column: And the Winner: ‘No Problem’. Here's an excerpt, but read the whole thing:

“I’m as mad as hell, and I’m not going to take this anymore!” That famous declaration by Howard Beale in the movie “Network” is the implicit and sometimes explicit message of the many hundreds of responses to last week’s column on phrases and announcements that make your heart sink and make you want to commit mayhem. 

“Rage” was a word often used as readers accepted my invitation to add their own (non) favorites to my small list. By my count, the top preferred un-preferred phrase was “No problem” in response to “Thank you” (disliked either because it suggests a problem caused by you will be graciously ignored or that no problem existed when you know it did). 

That was followed by “Batteries Not Included,” “Are you still working on that?” (asked by a waiter who wants to get rid of you), “For your convenience” (always a preliminary to inconvenience), “Have a nice day” and one I did cite, “Your call is important to us.”

Team and organization names: Singular or plural?

Zorylee writes:

I have a question that has been boggling my brother and me.

Many sports team names have an S at the end,  NY Yankees, Green Bay Packers, etc.

Now my question is when you shorten the name and just say Yankees, Packers, etc I've heard a lot of people remove the S at the end of the team name.  

For example:  "I'm a Yankee fan."  "We're Packer fans." "A Packer first down."  etc.

Now is that correct usage of the team name?  Shouldn't the S only be dropped when it's talking about a specific player on the team?

For example:  "Alex Rodriguez is a Yankee."  "Brett Favre used to be a Packer."

Can team names be singularized when it doesn't refer to a specific player on that team?

Good questions! Technically, I guess we ought to say "I'm a Yankees fan," but widespread usage makes "I'm a Yankee fan" acceptable. And of course we can describe an individual team member as a Yankee or a Packer.

But you bring up an intriguing point: Many company and organization names end in a plural but are singular: "General Motors is in a lot of trouble." "The Canadian Auto Workers is conceding some points." Logically (if English were ever logical), we should also say, "The New York Yankees is in the World Series." But we always seem to treat teams as plurals if their names end in s.

Just to make it even stranger, in Britain team names are plural: "Manchester United have been dominating the game." "Arsenal United are looking for a new striker." And "government," which is thoroughly singular in North America, is plural in Britain: "The government are rejecting the proposal." 

This is why English teachers will always have work.