Go on, then. Correct this.

[RoxyNotFoxy]

I'm talking to all the collective-noun-is-singular enforcers. You know who you are.

TV News Item: "A couple has spoken of their shock when a motorcycle smashed through the windscreen of their car."

Now, I've never been a great supporter of the singular status of collective nouns, especially when what makes up the collective is human beings. Granting a noun like "couple" or "family" or "group" the singular indefinite article ("a" or "an") is about as far as I'll go in pronouncing it singular. But I would at least expect those who do think it should be treated as a singular noun to follow the logic to the bitter end. If a noun is singular, you may not treat its singularity as a passing fancy, and abandon it in the middle of a sentence.

You have two choices.

1. "A couple have spoken of their shock when a motorcycle smashed through the windscreen of their car."

1. "A couple has spoken of its shock when a motorcycle smashed through the windscreen of its car."

It's one or t'other. What's your poison?

1
Unless the couple would are speaking in chorus.

but then I'm not a great supporter of the singular status of collective nouns either

1

Definitely 1. These kind of things give me a real headache. Is option 1 actually grammatically acceptable (by the rule book)?

But substitute 'a family', and it all changes.. we're mixing our sexual politics with our pedantry?

1

But actually, to correct you further, we don't actually have 'two choices', we have a choice. Or 'two options'.

I think (thinks wildly and creatively) it is because it is their 'two-ness' that is being described.

Whereas 'a family' is seen more as a unit (who knows how many they are?)

Surely nobody would say 2 - therefore it must be wrong!

and agree with DSM re choice. Infuriates me to distraction when people say "two choices".

a couple what spoke of it shok see bike through sparkle-hard. boo

the choice thing got me

we have one choice with two alternatives

don't really mind about the couple and its predicament

has to be their really though doesn't it when you write it like that

I myself, wondered how it was that the motorcyclist smashed through their windscreen, yet they remain seemingly unhurt. Certainly able to give an interview.

I too hope said motorcyclist is okay.

the art of good writing while being true to your pedantry is realising that you don't have two choices options. Golden rule - if it sounds shit/breaks the rules whichever way you do it then rethink. And it's an awful sentence anyway.In order to rethink I've had to make bits up...

"A motorcyclist and a couple from Chelmsford all had a lucky escape today when the biker smashed through a car windscreen. Lucy and Raymond Grammaticus were travelleing in their Ford Capri when Hugh Jarse lost control of his new motorbike. Lucy told reporters that she was terrified ... etc etc

hat -- you don't need the "all"

we were never allowed "lucky escape"
same category as "have-a-go hero"

stuffitllama - quite right. but, in my defence, it was ten to two in the morning and I was writing any old shite to illustrate the principle

perhaps we shouldn't bring local newspaper journalism into pedants' corner

cans and worms and all that!

Okay, one choice or two alternatives - if you insist. But Dickens wrote Our Mutual Friend, when what he meant was Our Common Friend. His mistake is bigger than mine.

Sheeeeee! I didn't expect the Spanish Inquisition!

Just to fill you in: the motor-cycle story was from Australia (got it off YouTube). The motor-cyclist landed between the man and woman. No one was hurt.

It was the male/female smiling-puppet news presenters that annoyed me, as it always does. Why does it take two people to tell a story? Why do they have to finish each other's sentences? So I was looking for something to ridicule. If they'd just spoken normal ungrammatical English, "A couple have spoken of their shock..." I wouldn't have bothered. It's when they want to give the impression that they're more educated than the normal run that I find myself getting annoyed. "A couple has spoken of its shock..." - I think, "Fuck off, you pretentious twats!" I think the same when I hear them rhyming "proven" with "woven". They're the kind of people who give good English a bad name.

But I'm out of hospital now