Not happy with "The staff are happy" OR "The staff is happy"

Bill

Understood. That is exactly what all UK users are getting. A conflict where
both are reported as errors.

Terry


"Bill Davy" wrote in message
...
Just to get back to basics. My problem is that my version of Word (in UK
English) suggests alternatives for both:

The staff is happy.

The staff are happy.

That is not a matter of compatibility or usage. It is broken. How can a
user stop it (without disabling the rule altogether)?

And for my sins, I was dragged through Latin but the teacher decided one
of us should give up, so I did. Indeed, my matriculation year was the
first where a classical language was not required. There was a general
fear amongst the dons that they were admitting the barbarians.

Bill

"Graham Mayor" wrote in message
...
Language evolves - what in my reply would suggest that I believed
something different?
In the UK, very little attention appears to be paid to the teaching of
English grammar, which was not the case 50 years ago when I was at
school. Then there would have been less confusion. Now we have graduates
who cannot use the mother tongue with any degree of competence.

--

Graham Mayor - Word MVP

My web site www.gmayor.com
Word MVP web site http://word.mvps.org


Robert wrote:
Terry

Contrary to what Graham seems to believe, usage evolves by its very
nature, historically, and geographically.

And determining what is the current usage in a given area requires
deep statistical and linguistical analysis, which few people are able
or willing to do.

In any case who would bother to follow their recommendations?

Robert

-------------------------------------------------------------------

On Sat, 16 Jun 2007 16:00:28 +0100, Terry Farrell wrote:

Robert

That just about covers every possibility. It could be summed up as
'anything goes.'

Terry Farrell

Word 2000 seems to handle it correctly, though.

Considering the other posts in this thread, I think I have to take that
back... My test was a simple one, for US English text, and I was happily (?)
unaware of the complex reality. :-)

--
Stefan Blom
Microsoft Word MVP


"Stefan Blom" wrote:

Word 2000 seems to handle it correctly, though.

--
Stefan Blom
Microsoft Word MVP


"Terry Farrell" wrote in message
...
Bill

Not fixable. It is still present in W2007 too.

Staff (and crowd) are collective nouns, so 'the staff is' and 'the
crowd is'
are both correct. The grammar checker happily accepts 'is or are' with
crowd - but with staff, the checker accepts neither as correct.

Both the handling of crowd and staff are inconsistent and daft.

--
Terry Farrell - MS Word MVP

"Bill Davy" wrote in message
...
In fact, the grammar checker seems to have green twiddlyitis with
the
following:



The staff are happy. "staff are" have twiddles (suggests "staff is"
but
see below)

Staff are happy. "staff are" have twiddles (suggests "Staff is" or
"Staffs are"

Staff is happy. "Staff" has twiddles (suggests "staffs").

The staff is happy. "Staff" has twiddles (suggests "staffs" but see
above).

A staff is happy. "A staff" has twiddles (suggests "Staffs")



Is it fixable? How?



Word 2003 SP2.