The roughly 200 collective nouns in the English language cause a lot of confusion, but there's a simple answer, writes grammar expert June Casagrande.

When both nouns joined by “or” are singular, the verb form is easy: It’s singular, as we saw in “Ned or Nancy is.” When both nouns joined by “or” are plural, the verb is plural ...

Many is normally plural, but it takes a singular verb when a singular noun follows the phrase “many a” as in the following examples: • Many a teacher has taken the eligibility test.

What do erotica, stamina, and candelabra have in common? Oh, stop it. The answer is that they are all singular nouns that started off plural. In Latin, nouns that end in –um when alone often end ...