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Comment by chimeracoder | Hacker News Reader

> "the layoffs is taking place"

> i'm no English expert, but I can't take seriously an article with grammar errors :/

It's arguably a regional/dialect distinction. Here "layoffs" is being treated as a collective noun, similar to how people say "the data is" instead of "the data are". Notice how people usually say "layoffs" when referring to the entire round.

English has less dialectal variation than most languages, so English speakers (particularly educated British or American speakers) aren't used to seeing it, but collectivization of nouns is one of the more common ones to spot. If you pay attention, you'll start seeing other examples here and there.

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Without commenting on the correctness of the English in the article, which I didn't finish reading: when I moved to the US as a Brit, I was amused by many commercials' use of "a savings" to describe the effect of a sale or discount (e.g. "a 20% Savings!")

In this case, the collective noun "savings" is used with the singular article "a". This one shows up in both spoken and written American English.

Obviously, I can point intellectually to how and why it's correct, but it still sounds somehow weird and a bit folksy to this immigrant :)

I believe the rule of using "are" when following a noun that ends with "s" still applies though. eg. "the vertices are" but "the collective is".

I can't think of a collective noun that ends in S that I would follow with "is".

> I believe the rule of using "are" when following a noun that ends with "s" still applies though

Rules are dialect-dependent, though (or a better way to frame it: "rules" are observations about clusters which are used to define a dialect).

> I can't think of a collective noun that ends in S that I would follow with "is".

Sure, in the forms of American and British English that most HN readers are used to, there may not be any. That isn't universal, though.

There's a related phenomenon which may be more familiar to you: some English speakers will use a possessive form even when no possessive is being conveyed semantically, eg: "I'm going to Burger King's", or "Wal-Mart's is a good store". This particular one is fairly well-documented.

> some English speakers will use a possessive form even when no possessive is being conveyed semantically, eg: "I'm going to Burger King's", or "Wal-Mart's is a good store".

I might type "walmart's a good store" in an informal setting (not as a possessive, but as a contraction for "walmart is"), but no American / British newspaper editor would let that through. Its against the rules of english grammar.

I'm curious whether kids in Indian primary school are taught that "the layoffs is" is correct grammar, or whether its just a common mistake (like walmart's).

> "I'm going to Burger King's"

pretty sure this is also incorrect and something to be avoided in print, no?

"data" vs "datum" is pretty obscure. While an outfit like the New York Times may know the difference, I doubt that most people even know that "data" is always plural, since its forms are not even coming from English.

"in hospital"

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