Spotted by Julia M in iol news:
A man and a woman have been seriously injured when a car hit a warthog and collided with a truck near Senekal in the Free State, paramedics said on Wednesday.
A warthog ran onto the N5 between Senekal and Paul Roux while the car was approaching around 8pm on Tuesday, ER24 spokesman Derrick Banks said. After hitting the animal, the driver apparently lost control of the vehicle and collided head-on with a truck that was coming from the opposite direction, he said.
The couple was taken to Senekal Hospital. The truck driver was not injured.
Interesting that they refer to a 'pair' in the headline, but to a 'couple' in the article. The former suggests 'two people' and the latter suggests 'two people in a relationship'. Marks deducted for "have been" instead of "were" and "a car" instead of "their car" but bonus points for "the couple was" rather than "the couple were". You win some, you lose some.
Thursday, 17 November 2011
"Pair hurt after car hits warthog, truck"
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6 comments:
So what was the relationship between the warthog and the couple? And why?
"Couple" is a collective noun, and as such, "the couple were" is as correct as "the couple was".
See Wikipedia on the subject, from which I quote: "In British English, it is generally accepted that collective nouns can take either singular or plural verb forms depending on the context and the metonymic shift that it implies."
Yours, A Pedant.
JH, there was none.
AC, did I at any stage say that "the couple were" would have been wrong?
"It is generally accepted" that the glottal stop is entirely normal in everyday conversation, but it doesn't make it attractive or desirable (IMHO). Ed Miliband is appalling to listen to for that reason alone.
So in my little bit of whatever passes for reality today, "Government" is and remains singular, as does "couple".
And I'll carry on with my guilty secret pleasure - reading Straight Statistics where, to my delight and satisfaction, they always refer to "data" in the plural.
Oh frabjous day!
Also A. Pedant :-)
FT, what's wrong wi' t'glottal stop?
Wha_'s wrong with i_ ? I_'s no_ na_ural, is i_?
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