How to parse. ...

206

DIFFICUL TIES. [Par. 338, 339.

(2) " Tle whole family are in tears."
(3) "The majority of the inhabitants are ready to
petition against his return."
(4) " The army are anxious for a war."
But where the notion of unity predominates, the
Singular of the Verb is used: —
(5) " Tle whole nation rouses itself like one man."
(6) " The army is mainly composed of raw recruits."
338 There is an apparent inconsistency in -
(7) " The army - which a month ago was pining for
peace -are now, to a man, clamorous for war."
(8) "This people, who knoweth not the law, are
cursed."
But this is explained (III.) 1 by the harshness of
using a Plural Verb after a Relative with a Singular
Antecedent. Where the Plural Verb closely follows
the Noun of Multitude, the meaning of multitude
naturally affects the Verb, but the intervention of
the Relative Pronoun 2 diminishes the effect of the
Noun's Plural meaning.
339 The following examples (Mitzner, ii. 144) admirably illustrate the use of the Singular where the
t The Roman numbers in brackets refer to the Laws of Irregularity, Par. 198.
2 The effect of the intervention of the Relative is seen in the,
strictly, ungrammatical passage of Pope, where the Third Person
is used for the old Second:
"T/Tlo great first Cause, lenst uuderstood:
Who all my sense confil'd
To know but this, that Tlou art good."