Eurovision post videos of the technical blunders that happen during the live shows (some related to set changes) with side-by-side comparisons of what should have happened. An interesting watch! https://youtu.be/KeVaE8ldqfE
The 'invisible crew' who have 35 seconds to prevent a Eurovision blunder
51–58 of 58 posts
Re: The 'invisible crew' who have 35 seconds to prevent a Eurovision blunder
#52Oh, so that's real sand. I thought that was camera trickery. No way someone would be crazy enough to dump real sand on a stage while someone's performing live.
Re: The 'invisible crew' who have 35 seconds to prevent a Eurovision blunder
#53Earlier quoted context omitted.
"none" is saying something about all of the players, so how would that be singular? The word "none" is always used in a plural context, like if there is only one player then you won't say "none of the player"
I'm talking about the verb that follows 'none', not the noun. 'None of the team was [singular] prepared' and 'None of the team were [plural] prepared' are both correct.
You said
> A related example is the word 'none' (= 'not one'). Technically it should govern a singular verb
And I'm questioning why you think "none" should technically govern a singular verb when "none" is normally a non-singular subject.
I'm sure both are being used, and at the end of the day what is correct is determined by how a significant amount of people are using the language. But I just don't understand why you think a singular verb would be more "technically correct"
Did you mean that because you could replace none with "not one" then it should be singular? But that only works because the 'not' applies to the whole sentence, so the remainder is about 'one', i.e. "not (one of the team was prepared)". But that doesn't work for the word none because you can't read it as the 'not' applying to a singular part-sentence.
Re: The 'invisible crew' who have 35 seconds to prevent a Eurovision blunder
#54Honestly this sounds way more interesting than Eurovision itself.
I’ve been a fan for almost 18 years, ever since some euro friends were talking about the voting system on IRC. Love the intersection between culture and geopolitics.
I have religiously watched Eurovision after seeing Lordi open up for Type O Negative in 2008.
To Europeans it is normal and old hat, but to an American like me it is almost too weird to be real!
Re: The 'invisible crew' who have 35 seconds to prevent a Eurovision blunder
#55Maybe they should have prevented the blunder of a genocidal nation using their show to launder their image, but what do I know
Re: The 'invisible crew' who have 35 seconds to prevent a Eurovision blunder
#56Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's often proscribed, many style guides say 'the company is / has ', sort of de-personifying it to the entity rather than the people that work there. I think it's an Americanizm to say e.g. 'Apple have released a new iPhone'.
No, it’s actually more common to do this in British English than in American English, so it’s a “Britism” if anything. https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C5&q=Brit...
Was it commonly used in (for example) 1900? It wasnt taught to Indian students like me, who had English books with Cambridge and Oxford logos.
Re: The 'invisible crew' who have 35 seconds to prevent a Eurovision blunder
#57I know this is not the right place for this but english is not my first language. How is "have" the correct verb here? Shouldn't it be "has"? Like, the crew is the subject, and it has 35 seconds. I'm trying to understand what I'm missing here, because I'm sure BBC did not make a mistake
If a noun denotes a group of people – even if it's technically a singular noun – it's okay (but not compulsory) to use a plural verb. The sentences 'Real Madrid have performed well this year' and 'Real Madrid has performed well this year' are both grammatically acceptable, and probably used roughly the same amount. A related example is the word 'none' (= 'not one'). Technically it should govern a singular verb (e.g.…
There are dialectal differences here. “Real Madrid have” is common in British English but would be very rare, possibly to the extent of striking native speakers as an ungrammatical mistake, in American.
Re: The 'invisible crew' who have 35 seconds to prevent a Eurovision blunder
#58Earlier quoted context omitted.
No, it’s actually more common to do this in British English than in American English, so it’s a “Britism” if anything. https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C5&q=Brit...
Was it commonly used in (for example) 1900? It wasnt taught to Indian students like me, who had English books with Cambridge and Oxford logos.
It wouldn't be taught here either, it's a colloquialism/corruption, whether from American influence or not. Long may you keep it (and so many other things) out of Indian English!