Collective Nouns - Like "Police" - What Verb Do you Use?

[TopManFL (imported)]

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According to Oxford Dictionary (https://blog.oxforddictionaries.com/201 ... ive-nouns/)

"Collective nouns, such as family, team, audience, or police, are so called because they refer to a group of people or things considered as a whole, that is, collectively."

and

"A collective noun has a singular form but it denotes more than one person or thing: should it therefore be accompanied by a singular verb, a plural verb, or is it an ‘anything goes’ situation, and either verb form is acceptable? As a general rule, you can check the dictionary if you’re not sure – every collective noun has a piece of information about what verb form it should take, and most can be followed by either a singular or a plural verb."

I read an article today and it read, "The police was called". It was like fingers on a chalk board to read. But, it seems that it's correct or at least correct enough.

The Oxford Dictionary blog makes note that common usage is changing.

I would have written that sentence as "The police were called", because police is a collective noun. How would you have written it?

If someone told me, "then the police showed up". I might ask, "how many officers?", assuming that "the" police didn't mean just one. If one officer showed up we wouldn't say "a" police showed up.

On the other hand, I'd write "the audience was silent" not "were silent".

[rogerwpbfl (imported)]

I would’ve used “were”.

“Was” sounds uneducated. Nails on a chalkboard is an apt description. I sometimes cringe when I reread my posts here because of a glaring error, undetected typo or a misguided autocorrect changed something that was never intended. I still have to manually change “Dick” to “dick”, which is the reason I now often write “cock” instead.

[Tante Wippen (imported)]

So what is the collective noun for a group of eunuchs?

[kristoff]

So what is the collective noun for a group of eunuchs?

As B calls them, "The Nutless Wonders."

[rogerwpbfl (imported)]

As B calls them, "The Nutless Wonders."

Hahaha DAMN!! That’s harsh

[Tante Wippen (imported)]

A pride of lions, a murder of crows, ... a castration of eunuchs?

[Begoneboy (imported)]

I like part of one of your suggestions, A Cast of Uunuchs" since we are after all on the worlds stage.