Thanks to "today's" Calvin and Hobbes strip, I realized that "United States of America" should be treated as plural. Henceforth, I'm going to try to do that. It has some interesting political connotations that I think I like, but let me know if I'm off base. Granted, this is going to make some ideas harder to convey, since you can't say "The United States are the world's only superpower." Maybe "The United States constitute the world's only superpower"?
2 comments:
Hmmm... It seems I heard somewhere that either "is" or "are" will do, and that if you are referring to the country as a whole, then "is" will work fine. I think the logic had something do with the federal government having more power than the states. But to be honest, I can't pin down at all where I got that idea. So enjoy using "are"; I won't judge you.
They fought a war about this grammatical nuance. Beware, amigo, beware...
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