Moriel: Holocaust Agnostic: The band is playing
The crowd is dancing.
The label is scouting.
The crew is planning a new pack for the trucks.
The police are at the door.

America, explain.

Explain language? Ha, ha! Pull the other one, then.


But seriously the only pattern I can see in those examples only makes me more confused. In each case the nouns are collectives. The band, crowd, label, crew, and police are all groups of people, rather than individual people. But in the first four cases it is understood that the nouns refers to the entirety of the collective. "The band" means "All of the band members". "The crew" means "all of the crew memebers", etc.

In the last case "The police" refers to only a subset of the the entirety of the police. Is that what makes a difference? I don't know enough about grammar to answer this.

/Jake and Elwood might have been told that the police is at the door, however.

You would say the navy is recruiting at the high-school though, and no one would expect to find all the carrier battle groups floating in the fountain.

3rdtimearound: Profedius: I was in the middle of my meal of a hamburger and chips when I got a call on me mobile then the electric went on the frits so I had to get me torch.

I was in the middle of my meal of a hamburger and fries when I got a call on my cell phone then the power went out and I had to get a flashlight.

See? America and Britain can find some common ground after all. Terrible diets! Now let's shake hands and get a bucket of KFC!

I'll shake hands no problem, but I am not a big fan of chicken. I enjoy the language and have no trouble understanding it. Chips are fires and chips are crisps is another great one.

I can speak both variants pretty well. I've gone pretty much native since moving to the US, but I can still amuse family and friends when I take my shopping out of the boot in the carpark. The only one that sometimes gets me is 'pissed' which I still understand to mean 'drunk'.

/burgers it is then!

Holocaust Agnostic: The band is playing
The crowd is dancing.
The label is scouting.
The crew is planning a new pack for the trucks.
The police are at the door.

America, explain.

The police SWAT team is at the the door.
The police[men] are at the door.

Understand now?

Mine come from my time in Australia which is pretty close to British speech. Pissed oh yes I recall the first time I heard that one and it got me. I was with my girlfriend at the time and she said "that gent is pissed poor bugger." And I replied "He doesn't look upset at all and seems to be quite happy." I miss her she was great fun. I can't switch my own speech, but I can switch to understanding without any problems.

sheumack: capt.hollister: "rent" is mostly used for inanimate objects or spaces.

Hence the term "rent boy"

Sir, me thinks thou doth quoth the wrong Farker

Holocaust Agnostic: The band is playing
The crowd is dancing.
The label is scouting.
The crew is planning a new pack for the trucks.
The police are at the door.

America, explain.

Crib be jumpin.
Man dey trippin.
Dey be crusin.
po po at de do
Alt: Fav-Oh at de do.

ISO15693: ...weird british use of the verb tense "it will be" to actually mean "it is.... right now" as in "Is that the post office? Ah yes, it will be. It has a flag.."

Yep, I learned that from the British version of Whose Line Is It Anyway. They did a bit called That'll Be Charlie Now. 3 people talk about a friend (Charlie), who then comes on and acts like they say he does (honestly, it's funnier than it sounds).

/It kinda makes sense when you consider what George Carlin said: There is no present. There's only the immediate future and the recent past.

Holocaust Agnostic: The band is playing
The crowd is dancing.n
The label is scouting.
The crew is planning a new pack for the trucks.
The police are at the door.

America, explain.

Okay. Here you go:

One "crowd", two "crowds" - the word crowd is singular.
One "label", two "labels" - the word labelis singular.
One "crew ", two "crews" - the word crew is singular.
One "policeman", two "police" - the word "police" is plural. You would never say "a police is writing me a ticket" - maybe "policeman", or "cop" - something singular. But police itself is plural, so it takes the plural "are" and not "is"

Clear enough?

If you want to go around saying "A police is writing me a ticket" or "A crew are outside looking for King Richard III" - go ahead. It just sounds illiterate.

edmo: the King's English

Thank you.
Thank you very much.