MSFT Are
Bunches of new bloggers from MSFT. I need to update my list, and thanks to one of the new bloggers, I’m changing the title of the “MSFT is” blogroll. I was just checking out David Chalmers’ inaugural post. (David, along with Morris Sim and Gavin King, completes a trifecta of MSFT academic bloggers from the UK) . In his post, David points to a video his team made; the opening words of the video are “Microsoft are on the road again”.
That used to be proper grammar in the U.S., too. However, nobody says that today, and most Americans upon hearing it would think the speaker made a mistake. In fact, most grammar books in the U.S. have been revised to allow or even require the incorrect grammar form now. “MSFT are” is the only really defensible subject-verb agreement, and the colloquial “MSFT is” can be blamed for some reduction in critical thinking capacity, IMO. The colloquial grammar makes it all too easy for politicians and journalists to anthropomorphize organizations which are in reality very complex.