Everything that exists belongs to one group or the other. As a result, nothing exists in isolation. Just as every human belongs to a family regarded as a unit of society, so do objects belong to groups and categories under which they are classified. This brings our focus to the concept of collective nouns.
What is a Collective Noun?
A collective noun is a noun that represents a particular group of people, object or concepts as a whole. Collective nouns serve as an aggregation of individuals or objects possessing similar traits or characteristics.
Observe the following:
a. A bunch of bananas
b. A bevy of ladies
c. A den of lions
d. A swarm of bees
e. A school of fish
The examples above are noun phrases, but what we are dealing with is collective nouns so what have noun phrases got to do with it? The collective nouns in the examples above are the following: "bunch", "bevy", "den", "swarm", and "school". The reason why we have them in noun phrases is for ease of identification of the persons or objects that belong to the group identified by the collective nouns. Noun phrases help to identify the nouns being grouped by a collective noun. This is because some persons find it difficult associating collective nouns with the individual elements they represent, hence their inclusion in phrases. You would observe that the collective nouns function as the headwords of the noun phrases in the examples, preceded by the indefinite article, "a", which serves as modifier, and followed by a prepositional phrase serving as a qualifier, including the preposition, "of", and the noun being grouped.
Examples of Collective Nouns as Individual Elements:
a. Bunch
b. Bevy
c. Den
d. Swarm
e. School
Comparing Collective Nouns with Plural Nouns
Plural nouns are simply nouns that refer to more than one person or object. While they refer to multiple objects or persons, they do not serve the same function as collective nouns. Take for instance;
b. The musicians are performing live on stage.
The plural noun, "musicians", refers to a couple of individuals with the skill of producing music of varying genres. However, it does not group them as a single unit, but identifies them as individual units in mass. Collective Nouns group individual nouns with similar characteristics performing similar actions as a unit.
Take for instance;
a. The orchestra is performing live on stage.
The collective noun above, "orchestra", refers to a band that performs the same music together. The reason why it was not written in full as: "The orchestra of singers", is because the word, orchestra, is popularly associated with a group of united music performers and so the need to write it out in full becomes redundant. This shows that collective nouns are groupings of nouns that function together, while plural nouns refer to individual nouns in mass quantity of more than one performing different activities.
Verb of Collective Nouns
Collective nouns typically take a singular verb because they are a group of persons or objects functioning as a unit—as one.
Observe the following:
a. The tuber of yams is cheap.
b. A fleet of ships is on a voyage.
c. A herd of cattle is coming this way.
d. The pack of wolves was sighted in the bushes.
All the examples above take singular verbs: "is", and "was", depending on the tense. However, there is an exception to this rule:
Collective Nouns take a plural verb when the individual elements do not function together as a unit. Take for instance:
a. The team are celebrating their victory together.
b. The jury are still debating the case among themselves.
c. The staff have decided to strike.
d. The police are investigating the matter.
e. The committee are divided in their opinions.
The collective nouns above take plural verbs because their component units are functioning separately or independently. Each member of the team is celebrating, hence our focus is on the members of the team individually and not the team itself as a single unit. The same applies to the other examples: each member of the jury is expressing their opinion on the case, each member of the staff are participating in the strike, members of the police are involved in the investigation, and members of the committee have varying opinions.
So collective nouns are nouns that refer to a group of elements: persons or objects, functioning as a single unit. They usually appear in noun phrases to clarify the groups they represent as a single unit. Collective nouns generally take a singular verb except in cases where the individual elements do not function together. Understanding how to use collective nouns properly will better equip you for effective writing and communication in the English language.
Read more:
- Understanding Attributive Adjectives and Predicative Adjectives in English
- Intensive Pronouns in English: Understanding the Concept of Emphatic Pronouns
- Exploring Reflexive Pronouns in English: A Guide