The police is/are...

[Tan Elaine]

I have been told that it is also correct to say "The police is coming'. But I have been taught and the dictionaries confirm that it should be "The police are...".

If "police are" is the only correct version, why is this so? Can someone please explain the usage to me.

Thanks.

 

[philo2009]

The noun 'police' is plural only.

 

[Tan Elaine]

The noun 'police' is plural only.

Thanks, Philo. Do you know why 'police' should be used with a plural verb, eg. The police are coming.? It has baffled me since I came to know of the usage.

 

[bhaisahab]

Thanks, Philo. Do you know why 'police' should be used with a plural verb, eg. The police are coming.? It has baffled me since I came to know of the usage.

"Police" is a collective noun.

 

[Tan Elaine]

"Police" is a collective noun.

Thanks, Bhaisahab. As you said, 'police' is a collective noun. But again, why should it be "Police are ..."? 'Herd' is a collective noun. We can say that the herd is cattle is grazing in the field. (I believe 'are' is also correct.)

 

[5jj]

... 'police' is a collective noun. But again, why should it be "Police are ..."? 'Herd' is a collective noun. We can say that the herd [STRIKE]is[/STRIKE] of cattle is grazing in the field. (I believe 'are' is also correct.) Yes, in BrE.

That is an interesting point, which had not occurred to me until I read your post. 'Police' is so plural in our minds that we can say "The police are here/coming" even if only one police officer is here/coming; we definitely cannot say "The police is here/coming".

Later note: I have been hunting. I have not found an answer to ‘why?’, but I have found some other plural-only nouns in Huddleston and Pullum:

Bipartites: trousers, pants, pliers, scissors, spectacles, …
Substances consisting of particles: oats, Epsom salts, grits (AmE), …
Aggregates of entities: clothes, groceries, remains, …
Uninflected: cattle, poultry, vermin, police
Others: surroundings, amends, customs (and excise), grounds (of coffee, or of a large house), particulars, …

Huddleston, Rodney & Pullum, Geoffrey K (2002) The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language, Cambridge: CUP, pages 340-348[/I]

 

[Tan Elaine]

That is an interesting point, which had not occurred to me until I read your post. 'Police' is so plural in our minds that we can say "The police are here/coming" even if only one police officer is here/coming; we definitely cannot say "The police is here/coming".

Thanks, Fivejedjon. That means there is no reason for the usage at all. We have to accept that "Police are..." is idiomatic. Am I correct?

 

[Rover_KE]

Yes.

 

[Tdol]

'Police' is so plural in our minds that we can say "The police are here/coming" even if only one police officer is here/coming; we definitely cannot say "The police is here/coming".

It is a tremendously plural word- even when uncountable slang terms are used for them, we still go for the plural:
The filth were there.

 

[philo2009]

Thanks, Fivejedjon. That means there is no reason for the usage at all. We have to accept that "Police are..." is idiomatic. Am I correct?

Not really: to assert that the usage is a matter of idiom would imply that 'the police are..' is simply more natural than 'the police is...' but that the latter would still be "technically" acceptable. It would not!

The word 'police' simply happens to belong to the class of uninflected plural nouns. It does not require any other 'reason' than that to govern a plural verb!

 

[konungursvia]

Thanks, Fivejedjon. That means there is no reason for the usage at all. We have to accept that "Police are..." is idiomatic. Am I correct?

For the Brits, who love collective nouns such as "the team are happy with their match today" the noun cannot be used as a singular collective like "the team (is happy....)"

In most other dialects, however, it can, after the French style, be a singular collective. In North America we do so about as often as we use it in the singular. I found 30,000,000 google hits with "The police is," and after reading through, noting a few exceptions coming from other constructions, I can confirm that it does exist and is quite frequent. It's just not very British.

 

[philo2009]

For the Brits, who love collective nouns such as "the team are happy with their match today" the noun cannot be used as a singular collective like "the team (is happy....)"

In most other dialects, however, it can, after the French style, be a singular collective. In North America we do so about as often as we use it in the singular. I found 30,000,000 google hits with "The police is," and after reading through, noting a few exceptions coming from other constructions, I can confirm that it does exist and is quite frequent. It's just not very British.

Although I was under the impression that 'police' was as obligatorily plural in AmE as it is in BrE, you may well be right regarding the former. I will defer to your native instincts on that!

You are, however, wrong in asserting that collective nouns cannot be singular in BrE: 'The team is...' etc. is perfectly acceptable, albeit arguably less common. Since 'police', however, (interestingly unlike e.g. 'army' and 'navy') can never be grammatically singular, the appropriate classification would seem to be 'plural-only noun' rather than 'collective noun'.

 

[5jj]

. I found 30,000,000 google hits with "The police is," and after reading through, noting a few exceptions coming from other constructions, I can confirm that it does exist and is quite frequent. It's just not very British.

As I have written before, 250 million hits for ain't doesn't make ain't acceptable in standard English.

I did read through some of the google sites (not many, I admit) and found that very few appeared to be in serious writing by educated British, Irish, American, Canadian or Australian writers. Quite a few of the early hits were questions to language forums about whether 'police is' is acceptable.

I read through the 171 examples in COCA and the 69 in BNC. A small number contained colloqialisms and non-standard English in other expressions and/or were clearly from non-native speakers. Most were of the type: "The job of the police is to ..." in which the word police was not the subject of the verb.

There were indeed several example containing 'the police is' where the 'rules' tell us it should be 'the police are'. However, most of them were of the type: "The British police is essentially a politically independent body"., i.e. sentences in which the writer was referring to the police as an institution.

I must admit that I had not thought of this use; although it surprised me, it appears to be acceptable. However, after an inevitably fairly cursory look through some of the google examples and all of those from COCA and BNC, I still feel that in most standard dialects, 'police' cannot, after the French style, be a singular collective - except when referring to the institution.

'The police is coming' is not standard English.

 

[konungursvia]

Although I was under the impression that 'police' was as obligatorily plural in AmE as it is in BrE, you may well be right regarding the former. I will defer to your native instincts on that!

You are, however, wrong in asserting that collective nouns cannot be singular in BrE: 'The team is...' etc. is perfectly acceptable, albeit arguably less common. Since 'police', however, (interestingly unlike e.g. 'army' and 'navy') can never be grammatically singular, the appropriate classification would seem to be 'plural-only noun' rather than 'collective noun'.

When I said "the noun" I was referring to "police" which, in British English, I agreed, is not used in the singular.

I agree with 5jed that the singuar use is also less common, despite what I said earlier about them being roughly equal.

However, I would like to point out the narrow interpretation he makes of "standard English."

250,000,000 hits for "ain't" does mean it is acceptable, in certain contexts. George W. Bush used it all the time, in public. I never do, because it's not standard in my region and sounds foreign to me. But no one, not even an Englishman, can dicate to people in other regions what is or isn't standard English.

"The police is here" is acceptable English in my view. I hear it in spoken English here fairly often. In Singapore, it seems to be the standard usage. It does sound a bit odd, as though it raises a question of norms, but there's nothing wrong with it. Many correct usages raise such questions.... "between you and me..." "none is..." "it is I who am..."

I looked through our local newspapers and have noticed that they generally avoid both "the police are" and "the police is", sidestepping this issue entirely by using "police force", "police officers"... and so on.

But it is an interesting question.

 

[konungursvia]

Here is another example, as a proper noun, which sounds perfectly fine:

RCMP budget cannot keep pace with demands, report says

Tonda MacCharles, Ottawa (Toronto Star) – The Royal Canadian Mounted Police is warning that national policing services such as fingerprint and criminal records-keeping are strained to the breaking point and reviews now underway could lead to cuts.
The RCMP is “really struggling” to clear backlogs in forensic tests and criminal record checks at the expense of [...]
Jun 9, 2011 — 1 comment


And here's another article with "The police is there to protect us...." and it is evidently written by a native English speaker here in Canada:
http://www.bestcopgossip.com/2010/11/toronto-star-newspaper-asks-if-some.html

 

[5jj]

However, I would like to point out the narrow interpretation he makes of "standard English."

I value other forms of English, as I have made clear in other threads, and perhaps 'standard' is not the best expression for the forms I have mentioned above.

However, my experience of nine months in this forum suggess that most of the people writing in with questions are interested in what is generally considered acceptable in the not-too-informal language of moderately (at least) educated speakers of AmE and BrE and, possibly, CanE, AusE and NZE. With the international acceptance of such US, British and Australian examinations as TOEFL, CPE, CAE, FCE, IELTS, etc, this is not surprising; the past prestige of Britain and British writers, and the current military-industrial-entertainment power of the USA also contribute to these two dialects' position as market leaders. Where the interest of people asking and/or responding is in other dialects or registers, this is normally made clear.

250,000,000 hits for "ain't" does mean it is acceptable, in certain contexts. George W. Bush used it all the time, in public. I never do, because it's not standard in my region and sounds foreign to me. But no one, not even an Englishman, can dicate to people in other regions what is or isn't standard English.

I am not attempting to dictate anything to anybody, but I think you are being a little disingenuous here. (I don't think there are many people who would hold up Dubya as a model producer of 'good' English.)

"F***ing f*** off, ya f***ing f***er" is acceptable in certain contexts as an alternative to my, "With all due respect, I think you may be mistaken". I don't think it is particularly narrow of me to say that this is 'not acceptable in standard English.' Peope writing in to this forum need to know that, other than in certain dialects and registers, in fairly informal spoken exchanges and in certain fixed expressions such as 'If it ain't broke, don't fix it', learners are well advised not to use 'ain't'

I looked through our local newspapers and have noticed that they generally avoid both "the police are" and "the police is", sidestepping this issue entirely by using "police force", "police officers"... and so on.

We can't draw any real conclusions either way then, can we? Even if we could, we would be doing so only for the English used in the are covered by your local newspapers. As I wrote in an earlier post (accepting the reservation about my use of 'standard', and with emphasis added): "I still feel that in most standard dialects, 'police' cannot , after the French style, be a singular collective - except when referring to the institution".

 

[Hedwig]

It is a tremendously plural word- even when uncountable slang terms are used for them, we still go for the plural:
The filth were there.

ROTFLMAO.

Are the police as mistrusted in your 'hood as in mine? ;-)

 

[5jj]

ROTFLMAO.

Are the police as mistrusted in your 'hood as in mine? ;-)

They is.

 

[Hedwig]

There are many threads I follow without posting (when you have nothing to say, better keep your mouth shut, Hedwig). I've nothing to add to this discussion either but I wanted to say this is a very illustrative thread. Keep up the good work, boys!

 

[konungursvia]

I wasn't being disingenuous, as I was concerned with the difference between "not standard" and not "acceptable."