NRTC English: Other nouns that behave like ‘the police’

According to Longman Dictionary online, ‘the police‘ refer to the official organization whose job is to catch criminals and make sure that people obey the law.

The police, being a plural noun, require a plural verb. Therefore, it is correct to say “The police have charged the parents with murder”, NOT “the police has charged the parents with murder.”

When referring to an individual who works for the police force, the appropriate terms to use are a police officer, a policeman, or a policewoman.

While it is common to find ‘The police’ always used with the definite article “the”, it can also be used without “the”.

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For example: Police are your friends, NOT Police is your friend.

In this case, Police mean the people who work for an official organization whose job is to catch criminals and make sure that people obey the law.

Police is a plurale tantum, a word with no singular form. Other nouns that belong to this category are livestock, sheep, staff, deer, fish, cattle, etc.

However, we can say a member/members of the police, a member/members of staff, fifty head (NOT, heads) of cattle/sheep etc.

In English, pluralia tantum are often words that denote objects that occur or function as pairs or sets, such as spectacles, trousers, pants, scissors, sunglasses, binoculars, headphones etc.

Pluralia Tantum are nouns that do not have a singular form. It sometimes may seem that they have, but the singular has then quite a different meaning, or it is from a completely different word class, so you cannot consider the singular and plural to be the same word.

Other examples are pyjamas, tights, shorts, knickers. What you may have noticed here in pluralia tantum is that they are always considered in twos or “forever” exist as pairs or sets.

These nouns attract plural verbs and “them” as a pronoun, not “it”. We can also use a pair of to specify the number of what we are talking about.

The agreement with the verb, then, depends on how many pairs we are talking about as you can see from the examples below.

1. Your glasses are nice. Where did you buy it them?
2. I bought three pairs of trousers for my presentation.
3. A pair of scissors is needed in my shop

Other nouns that are always plural in form are surroundings, headquarters, savings, premises, outskirts, rites, belongings, thanks, likes/dislikes, congratulations, earnings, goods, remains etc.

All these nouns cannot appear without “s” hence they attract plural verbs.

For example:

1. His remains have been buried.
2. His foreign goods have been confiscated by some immigration officers.