In this situation, where "The Committee" is a group of roughly 9 men, which sentence would be correct? (One man from the group did something)
Does the rest of The Committee know of this? Do the rest of the Committee know of this?
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4In "do/does the [X] know this", do/does should agree numerically with X. I'd consider "rest of the committee" non-count here: "does the ...". But if X was just "rest", it would normally be treated as a count noun, so assuming more than 1 member in the rest: "do the rest know this".– LawrenceCommented Mar 13, 2017 at 5:42
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This question is still unanswered. Can anyone provide an answer? Lawrence, "do the rest know this" is different from "Do the rest of The Committee know this?" And I would put does in both honestly.– MillemilaCommented Apr 25, 2018 at 21:56
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Possible duplicate of Are collective nouns always plural, or are certain ones singular?– Honza ZidekCommented Jun 22, 2018 at 18:01
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Possible duplicate of and answered at subject-verb agreement with the head word "the rest": see @BillJ's response (in a comment) about the behaviour of quantificational nouns. There is also a notional consideration here (I'd use 'The committee are arguing heatedly among themselves', say).– Edwin AshworthCommented Jun 27, 2018 at 1:18
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2 Answers
This is s British English/American English issue, I should think:
http://blog.oxforddictionaries.com/2011/09/agreement-over-collective-nouns/
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Please summarize the argument. If the linked document is moved, your link will point nowhere and this answer will be far less useful.– Andrew Leach ♦Commented Jun 11, 2017 at 21:10
Does the rest of The Committee know this?
The Committy is subject of the sentence; the word rest is the adverb since it tells us more about the committee: there are more members in it.
The verb conjugation follows the subject, here being The Committee, which is a singular third person (one can refer to the committee it as "it")
The third person singular of the verb "to be" conjugates as: DOES.
Hence, the right way of writing here is: Does the rest of The Committee know this?
I hope this helps you out?
