A group of little girls was/were playing in the park.

On Mar 31, 2:43�am, Barbara Bailey wrote:
Oleg Lego wrote :



On Mon, 31 Mar 2008 04:21:16 -0000, Mark Brader posted:

"Datere" asks about:
A group of little girls *were playing in the park.
A group of little girls *was playing in the park.
...
The answer is that "were" is correct and "was" is wrong. �Expressions
like "a group of..." and "a number of..." are almost always construed
as plural. �Nouns referring to groups are construed as singular only
if you are thinking of the group as a single unit, which would be
very unusual for an expression like "a group of".

Well, whenever I think of a "group of" anything, I think of it as a
single unit, namely, a group.

Same here. "Group" is the noun, "of..." is an adjectival phrase modifying
it. In Datere's original sentences, "a group was playing..." �or "girls
were playing.."

Nothing better to do besides being usenets spellchecker?