FAMILY is or FAMILY are.......

My family is a wonderful family.

My family are very close to one another.


In the first sentence, the noun family is used as a single unit of people. This sentence is correct if you think of the family as ‘a single body’.

But in the second sentence, family is treated as plural as the speaker wants to emphasize that every member in their family is close to one another.

The word 'family' is an example of a 'collective noun'. Some other words in this category are 'group', 'committee', 'jury', 'team', 'public', 'army', 'congress', etc.

So, the question that whether a collective noun should be treated as singular or plural solely depends upon up on what you want to say i.e. if you think of the collective noun as a unit, treat it as singular, as in

'My family is settled in USA’, ‘The team is in its best form these days’, ‘The jury needs to be impartial in its verdict’, ‘The committee was able to take a firm step against the culprit’ etc.

But if you take a collective noun as individuals acting separately, treat it as plural, as in

‘My family are very co-operative with one another’, (emphasis on each member of the family)

‘Strangely, the team are wearing jerseys of different colours’ (emphasis on each player in the team)

‘The jury have unanimously agreed to the new proposal of the government’ (emphasizing each judge in the jury)

The committee meet once a month’ (emphasizing that each member is present once in a month without fail)

This rule is often strictly followed in British English though this confusing grammatical rule is slowly becoming flexible in modern English.

In American English, collective nouns are almost always treated as singular for example, if you type ‘The jury are considering the verdict’ in MS Word, the software will underline the words ‘jury are’ and prompt you to use ‘jury is’. The reason, as you probably know, is that MS Word accepts only American English grammar and spelling unless you have changed its settings to British English.

YOU ARE SUFFERING FROM PMD, AREN'T YOU?

Post modem depression (PMD) is a kind of depression that some people suffer from when they realise they are unable to access the Internet. In other words, it is the sadness that you feel when you are unable to access the Net.

If you are an Internet addict, you may go into a post modem depression on various occasions for example, if you have ever happened to stay with your relatives or friends who are living in a remote area where there is no Internet access, you probably have experienced PMD. You may also go into such a depression when you cannot access the Net on your PC or cell phone due to some technical snag.

In this modern era of aggressive social networking on Facebook, Twitter, Orkut etc, the number of people who suffer from PMD is increasing alarmingly. I am sure that many of you frequently suffer from bouts of post modem depression, don’t you? Frankly speaking, quite often, I do.

More examples of the expression:

“My cousin Mohan went into a post modem depression when he visited me in my village. He wanted to update his Facebook account, but he just couldn't log in. He was so depressed; he didn't talk to me for a couple of hours.”

“My colleague Sam is a Facebook-addict. He often suffers from PMD whenever his dial-up Internet connection is too slow or fails completely. I advised him to get a broadband connection.”

“Watching TV or listening to music is sometimes helpful in getting rid of post modem depression”

SHOULD or SHOULD HAVE TO is correct?

Many speakers of English in non-English speaking countries often use 'SHOULD HAVE TO' in speaking and writing. Among them, sentences like the following are very common.
1) “I SHOULD HAVE TO complete my assignment within three days”
2) “You SHOULD HAVE TO pass this test”

But, according to English grammar, this is a wrong use. Instead of using SHOULD HAVETO, you must use either SHOULD or HAVE TO. The reason is SHOULD is almost equal to HAVE TO although there is a slight difference in detailed grammatical analysis.

So, the previous wrong sentences can be rewritten as follows:
1) “I SHOULD complete my assignment within three days”
OR
“I HAVE TO complete my assignment within three days”

2) “You SHOULD pass this test”
OR
“You HAVE TO pass this test”

You can also express the same idea by using ‘WILL HAVE TO’ as in,
“I WILL HAVE TO complete my assignment within three days”, “I WILL HAVE TO pass this test” etc.

CHILLAX! I'm on a STAYCATION!!

Good Evening Guys!

 Have you ever defriended someone, or organized a tweetup? Blown on a vuvuzela or bought something bargainous? If so, the Oxford Dictionary of English would like to recognize your achievements.

The World Cup, credit crunch and social networking have all made a recent mark on the way we talk. The Oxford Dictionary of English (ODE) —not to be confused with the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) — is duly paying attention. The ODE is a dictionary based on how language is used in everyday life, and has 200 new phrases in its latest edition out today.

The dictionary, which was first published in 1998 with this being its third edition, now includes words such as frenemy (a person with whom one is friendly despite a fundamental dislike), LBD (Little Black Dress), cheeseball (someone or something lacking taste, style or originality) and bromance (a close but non-sexual relationship between two men.

"The dictionary reflects the way the language has changed over the last few years," Catherine Soanes, head of online dictionaries at Oxford University Press, tells TIME. "We run the biggest language research program in the world with an online database of over two billion words."

So, do you feel it's time to chillax (calm down and relax), take a chill pill (a notional pill taken to make someone calm), or maybe even take a staycation (a holiday taken in one's home country)? Then why not curl up with some steampunk (a genre of science fiction that typically features steam-powered machinery), or even the new Oxford Dictionary of English, which NewsFeed is more than happy to call a national treasure (something regarded as emblematic of a nation's cultural heritage).




Jacob Nova English Campus
Source: Internet (http://newsfeed.time.com/)