Well as most of you probably know the Lakers are coming to the Delta Center (I refuse to call it otherwise) on Friday. The truly intriguing question for me is this... if at halftime the score is 62 for The Jazz and 59 for The Lakers would I say "The Jazz is winning" or The Jazz are winning"? I have asked more than a few people this question and sparked several heated debates. Almost every guy I have talked to has immediately jumped on my back and said, "If you say The Jazz is winning then any sports fan in the world will laugh in your face." It made sense to me to say "The Jazz is" however because Jazz is not a plural word. Telling me it is plural because it is referring to a team is not a good argument in my eyes because the word "team" itself, although referring to a group of people is still a singular noun. I am in a teaching grammar and usage class right now and I even asked my professor this question and he did not have a definite answer. So I am throwing the question out there into the void of cyber space to see what kind of answers and arguments I will find. I also decided to see what sports writers use (since they probably know the best) and interestingly enough this is what I found... these two excerpts are from the same article.
"The Utah Jazz is on a roll, playing some of the most exciting basketball in the NBA." In this sentence the writer treats The Jazz as singular, but a few sentences later....
"The Jazz are serious contenders in the NBA Western Conference." In this sentence it is treated as plural!! What is going on here? I really have no idea, and I hate not having the answers to something.
If you want to see the article yourself go ahead and go to http://www.utah.com/sports/jazz.htm
5 comments:
Here are one opinion and here are another opinion (search for "names of sports teams").
I'd like to adopt the less British version, that we might make the independence we gained from them more complete: the Jazz are going to win.
But, Mandy, I'm a descriptivist, not a prescriptivist. I accept you as you is.
I think this falls under the realm of assumed, but not written words that follow the title of Jazz. For example:
The Jazz "is" assumes that the word "team" is following the word "Jazz".
The Jazz "are" is assuming the word "players" would follow. We assume prepositions in English, so why not nouns? Run that one by your teacher.
Nice one mom. That's just what I was going to say. ;)
Only an English major would notice this. . .or someone who had English Professor Mommy Cannon as a grandmother, because it made me wonder me too.
Mandy-this is Laura Wagstaff now Shirley-and I came across your blog from Jenny's blog-anyway I think it is funny that you wrote a blog about this because my husband, Joel and I had this conversation about a week ago....so I thought it was funny when I saw your blog about it too!
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