XPost: sci.lang, alt.usage.english

Here... [The team is] Eng_GB has a big peak at 2004

-- having increased for 10 years
-- Peaks in 2004
-- then rapid decrease for 10 years

Is there an explanation for it?

it's like... Brits decided to imitate Americans for 10 years
and then changed mind in 2004, and ....... for 10 years.


https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=The+team+is%3Aeng_us%2CThe+team+are%3Aeng_us%2CThe+team+is%3Aeng_gb%2CThe+team+are%3Aeng_gb&year_start=1930&year_end=2022&corpus=en&smoothing=3



______________________________(BEGIN quote)

"Is" is much more common than "are". Also "are" is much
more common in Britain than the U.S., as usual in such constructions.

https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=The+jury+is%3Aeng_us%2CThe+jury+are%3Aeng_us%2CThe+jury+is%3Aeng_gb%2CThe+jury+are%3Aeng_gb&year_start=1930&year_end=2022&corpus=en&smoothing=3&case_insensitive=false

https://tinyurl.com/5b6r6cwb

(I made it case-sensitive to eliminate "members of the jury are" etc.)

The shift in number from "the jury is" to "they" is
common, at least in American English.

--
Jerry Friedman
--
Jerry Friedman

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)