5. Collective nouns

A collective noun is a noun such as family or team that refers to a group of people or things. We use a singular verb with such nouns if we see the institution or the organization as a whole unit, and a plural verb if we see it as a collection of individuals. Often we can use either with very little difference in meaning, although in formal writing (such as academic writing) it is more common to use a singular verb: family, government, association, audience, committee, community, company, crowd, department, family, firm, government, group, jury, orchestra, school, team, university, and the names of specific organizations such as the Bank of England, the BBC, IBM, Sony, etc.

cf. All the family are fond of sports. Every family here owns a cottage.

Note 1: We can use singular or plural verbs with nouns like the majority, the public, the youth of today. Examples are:

• The public want (wants) to know how they are (it is) governed.

The Category of Case

Case is a grammatical category which shows relation of the noun with other words in a sentence. English nouns have two cases: the common case and the possessive (genitive) case. However, not all English nouns possess the category of case; there are certain nouns, mainly nouns denoting inanimate objects, which cannot be used in the possessive case.

1. The Formation

The possessive case is formed by means of the apostrophe and the inflexion -s added to the stem of the noun in the singular or the apostrophe alone added to the noun in the plural.

	Examples
Nouns in the singular	the boy's mother
Nouns in the plural	the boys' mother, the Browns' house
Irregular plural nouns	the children's mother
Proper names ending with -s (the inflection is pronounced as [iz])	James' cousin/ James's cousin Dickens' novels/ Dickens's novels Burns' poems/ Burns's poems
Compound nouns	the editor-in-chief's orders my mother-in-law's flat
Group-Possessive (the use of the group genitive is possible here because the words in the group form a close sense unit)	Jack and Mary's mother cf. Jack's and Mary's mothers Jack and Ann's children the Prince of Denmark's tragedy somebody else's umbrella the man we saw yesterday's son in an hour or two's time

2. The Pronunciation

In speech there are four forms of pronunciation of the possessive case:

• /z/ after vowels and voiced consonants: Negro's, dog's, etc.

• /s/ after voiceless consonants: student's, etc.

• /iz/ after sibilants: prince's, etc.

• zero: girls', etc.

3. The Use

The Possessive case is used:

1. with nouns denoting persons: Tom's car, John's idea, etc.

2. with nouns denoting time, measure and distance: minute, moment, hour, week, month, year, inch, foot, mile, etc.): a moment's delay, a shilling's worth of apples, etc.

Note 1: We can say: We had two weeks' holiday in Spain or We had a two-week holiday in Spain.

3. with substantivized adverbs (yesterday, tomorrow, today, etc.): yesterday's newspaper, etc

4. with the names of countries and cities: Canada's population, etc.

5. with the names of newspapers and nouns denoting different kinds of organizations: the government's policy, the Morning Star's famous column, etc.

6. with the nouns country, world, nation, city, town: the nation's wealth, etc.

7. with the nouns ship, boat, car: the ship's crew, etc.

8. with nouns denoting planets: the sun's rays, etc.

9. with some inanimate nouns in the following set expressions:

• to one’s heart’s content (сколь душе угодно)

• at arm’s length (на вытянутую руку)

• out of harm’s way (от греха подальше)

• a needle’s eye (игольное ушко)

• to be at one’s wit’s end (быть в крайнем недоумении, не знать, что делать)

• at a stone’s throw from…(рукой подать)

• at a snail’s pace (черепашьим шагом)

• to have smth at one’s fingers’ ends (знать как свои пять пальцев)

• for old friendship’s sake (в память о былой дружбе)

• for appearance’s sake (ради приличия)

• for conscience’s sake (для успокоения совести)

• at a hair's breadth (на волосок от)

• in the mind's eye (мысленно, мысленным взглядом)

• for Heaven's sake (ради всего святого)

• for Goodness' sake (ради всего святого)

• at death's door (на пороге смерти)

• to be nobody's fool (далеко не дурак)

• to know someone for donkey's years (со времен Бурской войны)

• at razor's edge (на острие ножа, на краю пропасти)

• at gun's point (под дулом револьвера)

• from a bird's eye view (с высоты птичьего полета)

Note 2: In general we are likely to use the of + noun phrase:

1. with inanimate and abstract nouns: the cover of the book, etc.

2. when we are talking about the process or a change over time: the destruction of the forest, etc.

3. when the noun is a long noun phrase: She is the sister of someone I used to go to school with, etc.

Note 3: The use of the genitive case with nouns denoting animals is not common though possible, e.g. the cat's tail, a bird's nest. The genitive case is also possible with nouns denoting inanimate things and abstract notions, but it is not common and may be found only in literary style, e.g. Nature's sleep, the play's title.

Note 4: A noun in the possessive case may be used without a head-word. This is called the independent (absolute) possessive. It is used:

1. to denote places where business is conducted: the butcher's, the baker's, the chemist's, etc.

2. to denote institutions where the genitive case is usually a saint's name: St Paul's, etc.

3. to denote places of residence: at my uncle's, etc.

4. to avoid repetition: Our house is better than Mary's, etc.

5. to express a partitive meaning ''one of many''. The indefinite article is used with the noun modified and the absolute possessive is introduced by the preposition 'of': This is a relation of the Whites', etc.

6. to express praise, pleasure, displeasure (with emotional colouring). In this case the construction is used after the demonstrative pronouns 'this-these', 'that-those': I don't like that foolish wife of Peter's.