<p>Hey guys. I had a few questions.</p>
<p>Is "United States" plural? And groups are singular correct?</p>
<p>Is it. The United States is a great place to visit?</p>
<p>in time of doubt, just say: "The U.S. is a great place to visit."</p>
<p>This is just my guess, but it probably used to be plural, but now it is a singular. The United States used to be a group of colonies with a weak federal government, but now is referred to as a single country.</p>
<p>Its singular.
Disregard IceFires comment.</p>
<p>Groups (if I understand correctly what you refer to by "groups") can be singular OR plural. E.g.
"The audience ARE talking among themselves."
"The audience tonight is the best group I have ever met in my performing career."</p>
<p>"The audience ARE talking among themselves."
That is incorrect grammar. A group should use the singular form. The audience, as with all groups, is regarded as a single entity.</p>
<p>^ is correct.
United States is one country, so its singular.
its just a name, it's not united states, its 1 country.so its singular, ALL THE TIME.</p>
<p>audience is singular in SAT.</p>
<p>^ Please refer to some explanation regarding this from The American Heritage Book of English Usage that I posted in the other thread:
<a href="http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/sat-preparation/552050-help-needed-writing-section.html%5B/url%5D">http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/sat-preparation/552050-help-needed-writing-section.html</a></p>
<p>It is plural. Read the 13th amendment. (“their”)
Plural </p>
<p>May I suggest that the key is to be found in the capitalisation (US - capitalization!)? You write that “the United States” turned into a singular noun. Perhaps the point is more clearly seen if one writes that “The United States” turned into a singular noun. The capital “T” of “The” calls attention to the fact that all three words are to be treated as a single entity. Or should I have written “is”?</p>
<p>before the civil war, americans said “the united states are” because they weren’t unitfied but after the civil war, they banded together and started saying “the united states is”</p>