Macmillan Holdings, LLC. Grammar Girl, Grammar Girl's, QDnow, and Quick and Dirty Tips are all trademarks of Macmillan Holdings, LLC. How to use it, and how not to use it. Dave Richards grammar Perhaps the US understanding of the term is different, but they way I learnt it, "dignity" is *not* a collective noun. Collective nouns are words like "group", "team", "committee", "collection", "herd" or "pride" (in the lion sense) that are nominally singular words that denote a collection of other objects, be they people, animals, emotions or anything else. Perhaps you meant uncountable/mass nouns? http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/subject-complement-agreement.aspx?commentid=17739#Comments http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/subject-complement-agreement.aspx?commentid=17739#Comments Fri, 10 Jul 2009 15:03:52 GMT Will grammar “Both writers complained that they had neck aches caused by staring out their windows too long.” --Great, now I don't know how many windows each writer was staring out of. http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/subject-complement-agreement.aspx?commentid=17602#Comments http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/subject-complement-agreement.aspx?commentid=17602#Comments Mon, 29 Jun 2009 10:22:56 GMT James grammar Another way to resolve the ambiguity in "The writers complained that their neck/necks was/were sore" would be to include the word "each": "The writers each complained that their neck was sore". This might imply that they didn't complain in unison, but rather sequentially; and it also requires the acceptance of "their" as a non-gender–specific singular possessive pronoun; but it does clarify how many necks each of the writers has. http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/subject-complement-agreement.aspx?commentid=17596#Comments http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/subject-complement-agreement.aspx?commentid=17596#Comments Sun, 28 Jun 2009 10:25:06 GMT KJ grammar This is silly, but I always remember a Union 76 gas-station commercial played on WGN in the 80's (Cubs fans will recognize & remember...) where attendant Nicholas gassed up his old English teacher's car. He was talking up the merits of Union 76 gasoline and ended with "...and that's why customers put it in their tank!" The teacher corrected him with, "Tanks, Nicholas, tanks!" And he answered, "You're welcome!" We say "Tanks, Nicholas, thanks" all the time in our household...and it always comes to mind when I come across the grammar issue. http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/subject-complement-agreement.aspx?commentid=17585#Comments http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/subject-complement-agreement.aspx?commentid=17585#Comments Fri, 26 Jun 2009 17:52:12 GMT Fri, 10 Jul 2009 15:03:52 GMT http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/subject-complement-agreement.aspx feedback@quickanddirtytips.com (Managing Editor) feedback@quickanddirtytips.com (Webmaster) en-us