Cerca tra vari insegnanti di Inglese...
Niwantha
"Staff" - singular or plural? Which should I use in this sentence? "have" or "has"?
Hi friends,
"Staff" - singular or plural? Which should I use in the following sentence? "have" or "has"?
1) Staff who have joined recently will not be eligible for bonus.
2) Staff who has joined recently will not be eligible for bonus.
Thanks in advance!
Niwantha
16 nov 2018 09:45
Risposte · 3
1
In British English, we would certainly use the first one. In this context, you can understand 'staff' to mean 'members of staff' - in other words, individual people - so we would use a plural verb. 'Staff who have...'. The idea of '[Members of] staff who have..' is understood.
There are other cases where 'staff' is singular. For example, you could say "The company has a very loyal staff", referring to the entire group as a whole. In this context, 'staff' is a synonym of 'workforce', which is seen as a single entity.
American English is slightly different in this regard. American English does not have the same flexibility to interpret group nouns as singular or plural according to context, and AmE speakers tend to avoid treating singular nouns as plural.
16 novembre 2018
Non hai ancora trovato le tue risposte?
Scrivi le tue domande e lascia che i madrelingua ti aiutino!
Niwantha
Competenze linguistiche
Inglese, Cingalese
Lingua di apprendimento
Inglese
Altri articoli che potrebbero piacerti

Same Word, Different Meaning: American, British, and South African English
22 consensi · 17 Commenti

How to Sound Confident in English (Even When You’re Nervous)
17 consensi · 12 Commenti

Marketing Vocabulary and Phrases for Business English Learners
14 consensi · 6 Commenti
Altri articoli
