Verb agreement with team names

IMHO, nicknames should be treated as plural; city/country would be singular.

 

That is correct. "England are..." is WRONG!

 

One thing's clear — I've definitely come to the right place. Thanks, guys.

 

Just changed two in a story right now of the apostrophe usage I mentioned last night. (names changed, obviously)

From: Tigers' Pam Thomas had a big night (they actually had it Tiger's ugh)
To: Pam Thomas had a big night for the Tigers

From: Podunk's Amy Johnson
To: Podunk starting pitcher Amy Johnson

 

Didn't use to be a problem until expansion teams started dropping the S (or at least the S sound) from their nicknames.

With both Sox teams and the Jazz there wasn't an issue, because you had at least a sibilant hint of pluralness. But then along came the Heat, and the Magic, and the Lightning and Wild and Thunder and so on with their newfangled singular team names.

The music press, in particular Rolling Stone, started this in the 1990s with "U2 are ..." etc., probably following the lead of NME, which is of course a British mag.

 

Wish those damn Brits would just speak English like us Americans.

 

Someone please tell me, is the below tweet a valid explanation for the correction above? I would like to properly explain to co-workers the reason I make changes like that, but I constantly struggle with knowing why certain writing rules are the way they are. I just know the rules, but not the reasons behind them.

 

Those are both awful examples.

Think of it this way: Adjective versus possessive.

Steve is a fan of the Detroit Tigers. Therefore, he is a Detroit Tigers fan. (Detroit Tigers is an adjective, just like he's a human fan or a devoted fan.)

Robert is the starting goaltender for the Florida Panthers. Therefore, he is the Florida Panthers' starting goaltender.

 

Correct. But you'd refer to him as Panthers goalie Robert Shlabotnik.

 

Neither of the originals were wrong (although the first example needs to include an article, such as "the Tigers' Pam Thomas ...").

You can justify the second change by saying you added detail. I don't have enough information about the first example to give you a justification for changing it. On the surface, though, it doesn't seem like a necessary change — and, in fact, you made it wordier. There might be a good reason you did so, but I don't immediately see it.

The AP tweet doesn't apply to the two examples you offered.

Sorry for chiming in late.

 

No problem. Looks like you were busy concentrating.

 

Thank you for actually explaining this. I guess it's something I've got to remove from my head. I hate the possessive apostrophes, so any time I can remove them I do. Maybe I need to stop doing that.