New UConn WBB Beat Reporter for Courant -> Alexa Philippou | The Boneyard

New UConn WBB Beat Reporter for Courant -> Alexa Philippou

She certainly appears to be an enthusiastic young lady who loves sports in general and basketball in particular. It should be noted that she is a Stanford grad whose favorite sports experience was watching the Cardinal upset of #1 UConn in OT back in 2014, ending the Huskies 47 game winning streak. :eek:
 
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slug25 said:
Not a good start for Alexa grammatically. She joined the Courant as its (not their) beat reporter. What’s going on in ENGL 101 in Palo Alto?
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Now if she would have said "I'm joining the Courant and its staff" we would be cool. This error is common, and I'm beginning to think we're seeing, again, the generative and protean nature of American English before our eyes.
 
slug25 said:
Not a good start for Alexa grammatically. She joined the Courant as its (not their) beat reporter. What’s going on in ENGL 101 in Palo Alto?
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I’d argue that she’s correct.

Since “Courant” a singular noun (even though it’s the name of the entity — it’s still just one entity), that would dictate “its” as the pronoun. If it were a plural noun, you’d use “their”.

I know my English degree is just from the little ole’ University of Great Falls, but that’s what I was taught.
 
Argonaut said:
I’d argue that she’s correct.

Since “Courant” a singular noun (even though it’s the name of the entity — it’s still just one entity), that would dictate “its” as the pronoun. If it were a plural noun, you’d use “their”.

I know my English degree is just from the little ole’ University of Great Falls, but that’s what I was taught.
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I seem to recall that the Brits use nouns as collective nouns. For example, Manchester United are hoping to...

UConn are going to the Final Four...
 
oldude said:
She certainly appears to be an enthusiastic young lady who loves sports in general and basketball in particular. It should be noted that she is a Stanford grad whose favorite sports experience was watching the Cardinal upset of #1 UConn in OT back in 2014, ending the Huskies 47 game winning streak. :eek:
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What happened to the previous reporter?
 
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For fellow lovers of linguistic squabbles, here is yet another consideration.
The new reporter may have been using The Courant as a collective noun.
If that were the case, it would be normal and correct for a speaker of American English to use the singular verb form. Did she do that? Have a look: "I’m joining @hartfordcourant as their UConn women’s basketball beat reporter!"

No, she did not. That leaves a rather grand loophole, however. If she were a native or adoptive speaker of British English, the plural noun form is more common for collective nouns. E.g., "Arsenal are playing well this season."

If you are in a mood to thoroughly scramble your brains, look up metonymy and
metonymic merging. For BE (British English) speakers, the same collctive noun may take either a singular or plural verb, depending on context.
 
Argonaut said:
I’d argue that she’s correct.

Since “Courant” a singular noun (even though it’s the name of the entity — it’s still just one entity), that would dictate “its” as the pronoun. If it were a plural noun, you’d use “their”.

I know my English degree is just from the little ole’ University of Great Falls, but that’s what I was taught.
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Hey, at least she spelled "their" right, right?

As a word guy I'm completely fine with the plural pronoun in her tweet. This type of break from formal agreement has a long and distinguished linguistic tradition, so much so that there is (or are?) a whole slew of fancy names for it, including:
  • synesis
  • notional agreement
  • notional concord
  • constructio ad sensum
 
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Argonaut said:
I’d argue that she’s correct.

Since “Courant” a singular noun (even though it’s the name of the entity — it’s still just one entity), that would dictate “its” as the pronoun. If it were a plural noun, you’d use “their”.

I know my English degree is just from the little ole’ University of Great Falls, but that’s what I was taught.
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You are actually arguing that she is incorrect. Courant is a single entitity, which means "its" would be correct. She incorrectly used "their".
 
45842
 
This minor diversion has been very entertaining. It really gets to the heart of the problem. We have no WCBB to be entertained by at this time of year. It certainly has been a long off season and this thread really does speak to that.
 
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JordyG said:
Now if she would have said "I'm joining the Courant and its staff" we would be cool. This error is common, and I'm beginning to think we're seeing, again, the generative and protean nature of American English before our eyes.
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“So fun”, is not correct grammar. And everyone uses it now. “Fun” needs a modifier after “so”. But it’s becoming common usage. “It’s fun” is fine. “The Boneyard is fun” is good grammar but we need a life.
 
cohenzone said:
“So fun”, is not correct grammar. And everyone uses it now. “Fun” needs a modifier after “so”. But it’s becoming common usage. “It’s fun” is fine. “The Boneyard is fun” is good grammar but we need a life.
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Excuse me! Excuse me! I have a life! I'm just persistently self absorbed and caught up in trivialities. Wait...what?
 
cohenzone said:
“So fun”, is not correct grammar. And everyone uses it now. “Fun” needs a modifier after “so”. But it’s becoming common usage. “It’s fun” is fine. “The Boneyard is fun” is good grammar but we need a life.
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You may want to review the rules regarding punctuation and quotation marks.
 
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