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
2018년 11월 16일 오전 9:45
답변 · 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.
2018년 11월 16일
아직도 답을 찾지 못하셨나요?
질문을 남겨보세요. 원어민이 도움을 줄 수 있을 거예요!