Timeline for Is "audience" singular or plural?
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
12 events
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| Oct 6, 2017 at 14:18 | comment | added | Gaurang Tandon | IMHO, this answer is not at all helpful to a non-native speaker without the example in the second comment. It should really be amended to include that example. Sacrificing complete understanding of meaning for clever brevity of words is not so smart imho. | |
| Mar 25, 2017 at 22:54 | comment | added | Pacerier | @BarrieEngland, So how does this match with the answer at english.stackexchange.com/a/58717/8278 ? Who is right? | |
| Jul 18, 2016 at 9:07 | comment | added | Tim | I'd tend to change it to 'the audience applauded'. There's always an alternative way in which to phrase something.Glad that AmEng adheres to what makes good sense, sad that BrEng, which I taught, appears to eschew it. | |
| Feb 23, 2012 at 23:00 | vote | accept | Mehper C. Palavuzlar | ||
| Feb 21, 2012 at 16:53 | comment | added | tchrist♦ | @Mitch: You’re exactly right. Any American proofreader would reflexively swap a plural verb to match the singular ‘noun of multitude’, because it is ungrammatical in standard American English to write ‘An audience *are expected to applaud’ instead of ‘An audience is expected to applaud’, and changing the article from indefinite to definite does not alter the required concordance. This style sheet for authors makes this matter perfectly clear. | |
| Feb 21, 2012 at 13:55 | comment | added | Barrie England | @Mitch: Yes, BrEng seems to be more comfortable than AmEng with words having plural agreement, when they look singular. | |
| Feb 21, 2012 at 13:47 | comment | added | Raku | If the speaker wanted to emphasize the members of the set, he could use "The people in the audience were..." or maybe more specifically "The male members of the audience were...". But maybe I'm in scientific mode where I'm wrongfully arguing against common practice, be it logical or not... | |
| Feb 21, 2012 at 13:37 | comment | added | slim | "The audience are clapping their hands" sounds right to me. "The audience is huge" seems to have a different meaning from "The audience are huge". | |
| Feb 21, 2012 at 13:18 | comment | added | Mitch | 'Audience' as a plural sounds really off. I don't think it is accepted AmE usage. | |
| Feb 21, 2012 at 13:13 | comment | added | Barrie England | @MehperC.Palavuzlar: 1. The audience was united in its appreciation of the concert. 2. The audience were divided in their appreciation of the concert. | |
| Feb 21, 2012 at 12:58 | comment | added | Mehper C. Palavuzlar | Could you please give an example? | |
| Feb 21, 2012 at 12:33 | history | answered | Barrie England | CC BY-SA 3.0 |