{"id":22894,"date":"2017-08-21T00:00:17","date_gmt":"2017-08-21T00:00:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/slinguistiques.com\/?p=22894\/"},"modified":"2017-08-21T00:00:17","modified_gmt":"2017-08-21T00:00:17","slug":"using-singular-or-plural-forms-with-company-names","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/traductionslrr.ca\/en\/using-singular-or-plural-forms-with-company-names\/","title":{"rendered":"Using Singular or Plural Forms with Company Names"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>When writing about an organization, do you use singular or plural forms? Would you write, \u201cMicrosoft released\u00a0<strong>their<\/strong>\u00a0first version of Windows in 1985\u201d? Or, \u201cMicrosoft released<strong>\u00a0its<\/strong>\u00a0first version of Windows in 1985\u201d? There is no cut and dried answer to this question. Most style guides and authoritative sources, such as the\u00a0<em>Chicago Manual of Style<\/em>\u00a0(see examples in 10.23), the\u00a0<em>Economist<\/em>, and\u00a0<em>The New York Times,\u00a0<\/em>that address the subject recommend using the singular as the second sentence does.<\/p>\n<p>But is not difficult to find examples like the first sentence in newspapers and magazines. Furthermore,\u00a0<em>The Gregg Reference Manual<\/em>\u00a0and the BBC, among others, allow for using plural forms when emphasizing organizations as a collection of individuals over their status as an impersonal entity. Both stress the need for consistency: once you have chosen to describe a company as singular or plural, you should stick with your choice. In other words, if you use the singular, you also need to use \u201cit,\u201d \u201cwhich\u201d and \u201cits\u201d and conjugate your verbs accordingly. If you decide to treat an entity as a plural, then you should use \u201cthey,\u201d \u201cwho\u201d and \u201ctheir.\u201d Avoid the kind of mixing and matching seen in the following sentence:<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBear Meadows Farms,\u00a0<strong>which<\/strong>\u00a0has been producing organic yogurt since 1988,\u00a0<strong>have<\/strong>\u00a0announced that\u00a0<strong>they<\/strong>\u00a0have been acquired by Kraft Foods.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The above sentence should be rewritten to eliminate inconsistencies:<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBear Meadows Farms,\u00a0<strong>which (who)<\/strong>\u00a0has been producing organic yogurt since 1988,\u00a0<strong>has<\/strong>\u00a0<strong>(have)<\/strong>\u00a0announced that\u00a0<strong>it has<\/strong>\u00a0<strong>(they have<\/strong>) been acquired by Kraft Foods.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>As long as the verbs and pronouns align, both versions can be considered correct. When proofreading, keep in mind that plural company names (General Motors, Johnson &amp; Johnson, and so on), like the one in the preceding example, tend to drift into plural forms because using singular forms with a plural noun can feel awkward.<\/p>\n<p>To assess current usage, we experimented with the NOW Corpus, a database of over 4.7\u00a0billion words from online magazines and newspapers maintained by Brigham Young University, to see how current usage aligns with these recommendations. Our short study suggested the predominance of the singular, although there were almost always instances of plural forms. For example, a search for \u201cMicrosoft released its\u201d produced 39 hits, while \u201cMicrosoft released their\u201d had only 3. Though our perusal of the database was not statistically significant, the results do suggest that most writers use singular forms with organization names.<\/p>\n<p>Given the lack of consensus on this somewhat murky issue, is the singular or plural the best choice? The safest, most common path is using the singular. That said, if this usage seems too unnatural, there is enough disagreement on the subject to say that you can use plural forms without being definitively incorrect.<\/p>\n<p>SLRR Translation Agency<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>When writing about an organization, do you use singular or plural forms? Would you write, \u201cMicrosoft released\u00a0their\u00a0first version of Windows in 1985\u201d? Or, \u201cMicrosoft released\u00a0its\u00a0first version of Windows in 1985\u201d? There is no cut and dried answer to this question. Most style guides and authoritative sources, such as the\u00a0Chicago Manual of Style\u00a0(see examples in 10.23), [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":24785,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22894","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Using Singular or Plural Forms with Company Names | SLRR | Translation<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Using Singular or Plural Forms with Company Names | SLRR | Translation\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"When writing about an organization, do you use singular or plural forms? Would you write, \u201cMicrosoft released\u00a0their\u00a0first version of Windows in 1985\u201d? Or, \u201cMicrosoft released\u00a0its\u00a0first version of Windows in 1985\u201d? There is no cut and dried answer to this question. 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