this post was submitted on 02 Mar 2024
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No Stupid Questions

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I know we would never say things like "Everyone else are walking around,"

but maybe we should.

And in any situation in which a noun implies many people:

Like the word "family"

"My family is at Disneyland."

vs

'My family ARE at Disneyland."

Ya see what I mean?

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[–] lemmefixdat4u 10 points 8 months ago (1 children)

It's funny, huh? Everyone is here, but people are here. It's because "everyone" is a singular collective noun referring to a group. The same is true of "family", and it's proper use is, "My family is at Disneyland." The plural of family is "families", and "Families are at Disneyland."

"People" is the plural of person, so it's "People are..." and not "People is..." - unless you're referring to the word "people", like this sentence.

[–] LemmyKnowsBest 3 points 8 months ago

You sure hit the nail on the head! You get it. And you explained the differences well.

[–] cave 5 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

I'm not an expert here, but I think it's because these words aren't exactly plural. They are terms for groups of things, and in the way used here, they are referring to a singular group, so they are used the same as other singular nouns.

[–] LemmyKnowsBest 1 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

perfectly understandable

It's the "everyone is walking around" thing that stumped me this evening because in this scenario, these are lots of different people not in one group, they're all scattered around at the beach and on the trails and in the grass, they are not one group. They are quite plural.

Yeah but must use proper grammar 🤷🏻‍♀️