Comments on: Grammar in Olympics story…

By: lorilei

lorilei — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 04:50:45 +0000

I’m just glad you commented on the fact that they had misspelled words also.

By: ray

ray — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 22:11:01 +0000

I was going to jump in on this one, but see that Mr. O’Callaghan has beat me to it.

Our British cousins always use a plural with a collective noun, and their idea of a collective is a bit broader than ours on this side of The Pond.

By: Tom Grabowski

Tom Grabowski — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 20:49:09 +0000

“Chicago were eliminated.”
I appreciate the grammar lesson learned and relieved that it was not an error or slang.

By: John O'Callaghan

John O'Callaghan — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 14:29:31 +0000

I am a Reuters editor who was involved in this story.

The grammar issue stems from British and American usage.

Our World Desk in London first handled the story because the announcement came from Copenhagen. In Britain, sports teams take the plural so this was extended to “Chicago were eliminated.”

Our Americas Desk in Washington handled the story later in the day and the headline soon was “Rio wins 2016 Games…”