Mark Liberman (Language Log) comments on the assertion that
Before the war, it was said “the United States are.” Grammatically, it was spoken that way and thought of as a collection of independent states. And after the war, it was always “the United States is,” as we say today without being self-conscious at all. And that sums up what the war accomplished. It made us an “is.”
Liberman investigates (see the link above for the start of his investigation), and discovers that, according to Minor Myers, Supreme Court Usage and the Making of an ‘Is’, 11 Green Bag 2d 457 (2008),
In the case of U.S. Supreme Court opinions, we apparently became an ‘is’ somewhat gradually, between 1840 and 1910. And the effect of the Civil War (or at least its immediate aftermath) was apparently to retard the change, not to accelerate it.
Hoosier says:
Sometimes I hate the truth.
It was better the wrong way.
Quote
October 12, 2009, 6:54 pmAnderson says:
A not entirely dissimilar question: “Congress,” or “the Congress”?
Federal Register publications seem to favor “the Congress did this or that.” Any thoughts, anyone, on what difference the “the” makes?
Quote
October 12, 2009, 7:02 pmBob says:
Perhaps the shift occurred just because American English continued to differentiate itself from British English. In modern Britain people still use a plural verb for a collective noun (“Parliament HAVE done such-and-such”), whereas in the U.S. we use a singular verb in that situation (“Congress HAS done such-and-such”).
Quote
October 12, 2009, 7:05 pmSandy MacHoots says:
I suspect it’s the larger change in the language (using singular for groups) rather than anything related to the U.S. itself. But after the Civil War many foreign immigrants tended to use “United States” instead of “the United States” much as they would say “France” or “Germany.” An old man I knew, who grew up in a heavily Bohunk area of Montana before WWI, to his dying day always said “in United States” instead of “in the United States.” That may also have influenced the change.
Quote
October 12, 2009, 7:21 pmCato The Elder says:
Might as well change it from “The United States” to “The State Department.” Same difference to them.
Quote
October 12, 2009, 7:22 pmAnonny says:
Interesting. But what does this have to do with [pointless vulgarity deleted –EV] American soccer fans using plural verbs after collective noun team names?
Quote
October 12, 2009, 7:31 pmAnderson says:
“The Dolphins has finally won a game”?
All is now clear: I am a douchebag.
Quote
October 12, 2009, 7:34 pmBrian Garst says:
How good a proxy of popular usage are Supreme Court opinions? A lagging indicator, perhaps?
Quote
October 12, 2009, 7:45 pmVisitor Again says:
Perhaps because, as someone noted above, it’s the usage in England to regard the team noun as plural–e.g., Arsenal are playing Manchester United. Many U.S. soccer fans watch Premier League matches from England on cable or satellite television or on web feeds; they probably copy the usage they hear then.
One oddity I have noted–on this website and others–is that some [pointless vulgarity deleted by me] sports fans in the U.S.A. are apparently unable to encounter mention of soccer without making some belittling reference to the sport. Every thread touching on soccer on this blog brings out several cretins who have nothing to offer but some snide or nasty words denigrating the game.
Something drives them to make this effort. I guess they feel threatened for some reason. Perhaps it’s because, deep down, they know the real football is the game played primarily with the foot, not the one played primarily with the hand, and that it’s the most popular sport in the world in terms of both number of players and number of viewers. Or perhaps they regard it as foreign, and have an irrational fear of all things they regard as foreign.
Now they’re even making denigrating references to soccer on threads that have nothing to do with the game, like this one. Their fear must have hit a new level. Perhaps that’s because there were two soccer posts in one day on this blog yesterday. God help them this coming June when it’s World Cup time.
Quote
October 12, 2009, 8:14 pmFlashman says:
The first time I read about the “are/is” distinction was, I believe, in James McPherson’s Battle Cry of Freedom. I looked in the book and and found the reference on pg. 859. McPherson also makes a similar statement in his Atlas of the Civil War (pg. 214). The quote is: “Before 1861, the two words “United States” were generally used as a plural noun: the “United States” are a republic. After 1865 (in Battle Cry he writes “the war marked the transition of the United States to a singular noun.”) the United States became a singular noun.” As evidence, McPherson only uses Lincoln’s speeches but highlights references to “Union” and “nation,” not the United States are/is transition. The reference to the are/is difference may be more symbolic than literal.
McPherson is a well known socialist (here not used as a pejorative) and he was generally able to keep these strong feelings out of his narrative.
Quote
October 12, 2009, 8:16 pmShelbyC says:
Well, it’s plural in French. They say both “les etats-unis” and “les USA”
Quote
October 12, 2009, 8:35 pmAJK says:
I always suspected that this particular piece of wisdom was apocryphal at best. Thanks for shedding some light on the subject.
Quote
October 12, 2009, 9:10 pmrmd says:
Could someone give an example where “the United States are” would be correct semantically as opposed to merely syntactically? That is, what might the states do collectively? I can’t think offhand of an uncontrived example of “The United States” meaning anything other than “the Federal government of The United States” for purposes of describing some action.
That does grate on the ears, doesn’t it? On the other hand, sports fans will often refer to a team by its hometown using the singular verb, like “Miami has finally...” It’s a funny language sometimes.
Quote
October 12, 2009, 9:24 pmAeon J. Skoble says:
Late to the party, but like Bob, my question was whether the actual timing of the Civil War isn’t a coincidence w.r.t. the shift in English/American usages. As others have noted, we now say “the jury has reached a verdict” and “the faculty has decided to award you honors” where the Brits would say “the jury have reached a verdict” and “the faculty have decided to award you honours.” So why would “the United States” function any differently, and why would we assume the Civil War “made everything change” all at once?
Quote
October 12, 2009, 9:26 pmMark Field says:
Bob is right — this is simply the transition from British English to American English. And as VA notes, the Brits still use the plural today in cases where we use the singular.
Quote
October 12, 2009, 10:06 pmAndrew Hyman says:
Instead of saying “United States is” or “United States are”, there’s always been a third option: deliberately being ambiguous. For example, the framers of the Constitution did backward somersaults to avoid saying “is” or “are.” Consider:
They found a clever way to avoid saying “is a party” as well as “are a party.” Chief Justice Marshall characterized this clause as saying that it “gives jurisdiction in all cases to which the United States are a party....” Other SCOTUS justices before the Civil War characterized this same clause as referring to a “controversy to which the United States is a party....” The Constitution itself said neither, FWIW.
Quote
October 12, 2009, 10:46 pmAJK says:
Note that the different opinions in that case use different forms. Fascinating.
Quote
October 12, 2009, 11:01 pmDNJ says:
Not only that, but Mr. Justice Curtis uses both “the United States is” and “the United States are” in his dissenting opinion.
Quote
October 13, 2009, 2:38 amwfjag says:
“The United States Is”
– You will be assimilated into The Collective. Resistance is futile.
Quote
October 13, 2009, 9:42 amAnderson says:
All is now less clear: I am a [pointless vulgarity deleted].
Quote
October 13, 2009, 9:45 amAnderson says:
What by the way indicates that Prof. McPherson is a socialist?
Quote
October 13, 2009, 9:55 amSeamus says:
That may be literally true, but the 13th Amendment uses “United States” in the plural (“Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof theparty shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.”) I suppose you could argue that this doesn’t indicate anything, because the amendment was adopted by Congress before the end of the War.
Quote
October 13, 2009, 10:04 amSueSimp says:
Also, the last Supreme Court justice to use the “United States are” form was Justice McReynolds, in 1935 — and given his judicial philosophy, it seems likely that was a deliberate invocation of the U.S.‘s more federalist origins.
Quote
October 13, 2009, 11:56 amFlashman says:
Anderson asks: What makes McPherson a socialist?
First, his body of work is suggestive, as it embraces (as it should) a dialectical approach to the Civil War era. But it’s in his portrayal of Lincoln and his reasoning that this becomes most obvious. He sees Lincoln, for example, as a champion of “positive liberalism.” McPherson sees the Civil War as our second revolution with Lincoln playing the role of revolutionary leader.
Second, he embraces Isaiah Berlin’s negative liberty-positive liberty (“freedom from” vs “freedom to”) theory without mentioning Berlin’s later stated belief that positive liberty may be a dangerous ideal given politicians’ propensity to exploit voter desires for their own needs for power.
Finally, there’s a smoking gun of sorts. You can’t overlook his numerous contributions to the International Workers Bulletin and the World Socialist Web site. Of course, this doesn’t necessarily mean he’s a card carrying party member, but if you read his interviews you’ll see that he’s certainly in agreement with much of what socialism has to offer, which of course coincides nicely with Berlin’s positive liberty argument, which both McPherson and socialists easily embrace.
None of this diminishes his skill as a historian. I respect his open approach since he doesn’t hide his political views behind a screen of false “intellectualism.” In fact, much of what he writes is easily digestible by a conservative and his writing is superb. The “are/is” debate reflects his belief that Lincoln and the Civil War resulted in the triumph of a more industrial and nuanced collectivist acceptance of the United States and, in the process, diminished the southern way of life, that for the most part embraced individual liberty, free markets, and property rights.
Here’s another way to look at it, according to McPherson. Before the Civil War our Constitution embodied the precepts of “negative liberty,” with the Bill of Rights ensuring freedom “from” a tyrannical central government. On the other hand, the majority of Amendments after the Civil War grated “rights” in a positive sense, i.e., we have specific rights “to” do something, such as vote etc. Though some of these great issues had been debated fore the Civil War, it was only the north’s victory over the south that allowed positive liberty to flourish and become the norm.
In essence, it was Lincoln that started us on a slow path to a more statist society. Does President Obama embrace Lincoln as the man who granted freedom to the slaves or as the father of a large, powerful, centralized federal government? The answer is, of course, both.
The debate over Lincoln and the Civil War is a wonderful way of exploring our modern historical roots and our future. I certainly can’t speak (or write) for McPherson, but reading him will give you a different perspective on our current path and may give you some insight into our current President’s character and objectives.
Quote
October 13, 2009, 12:33 pmfwb says:
In the Contract, we is still an “are”. Court decisions and ignorant usage by the general public does not alter the fact.
Being stupid or ignorant is no excuse.
Lincoln destroyed what the Founders created.
Tiocfaidh ar la!
Quote
October 13, 2009, 1:30 pmGuest14 says:
What Contract?
Quote
October 13, 2009, 1:47 pmPeter says:
In the early 1870’s, Secretary of State Hamilton Fish wrote to his counterparts in Great Britain regarding the irritation of the US with British actions during the Civil War, ie outfitting Confederate raiders. If I recall correctly, he wrote of the United States being irritated at the treatment of “them”–them being the states.
Much of American history is horribly politicized, and has been since early in the century. Even con law has long been politicized in its historical aspects.
Pretending the US went from the plural to the singular as a result of the Civil War is demonstrably false, and it is just one more example of twisting history to suit present purposes. Reminds me of the professor in the Ken Burns series on the Civil War saying that the war will not have been won until blacks have full civil rights. As the series was done in 1990, Im not sure what rights to which she was referring. Would have come as news to Lee, Longstreet, et al.
The US was and is remains a confederated republic. Fine to refer it in the singular, as long we acknowledge that it remains a confederation.
Albeit one that is bankrupt, or at least insolvent.
Quote
October 13, 2009, 3:20 pmMovie Fan says:
Not to detract from the quality of the scholarship here, but that little is/are anecdote was also recited by Nicholas Cage’s character in “National Treasure: Book of Secrets.” That’s where I heard it first.
Quote
October 13, 2009, 3:21 pmShelbyC says:
Language is such a beautiful and multifaceted thing that I would have to dispute whether there is ever such a thing as a pointless vulgarity.
Quote
October 13, 2009, 4:23 pmAnderson says:
Anderson asks: What makes McPherson a socialist?
Right. I had thought that being a socialist meant believing in socialism. Apparently not.
Quote
October 13, 2009, 5:15 pmlatinist says:
I’m mostly being a contrarian here, but I’m not sure the facts found by Myers can’t be reconciled with the interpretation they’re supposed to refute (though maybe that interpretation would have to be rephrased a little). The necessary interpretation would have to be something like: “From about 1840, we were starting to become an “is.” When this process wasn’t very far along, it met with some very strong backlash, in the form of the Civil War. This backlash did slow the process down a bit, but didn’t stop it, as it likely would have if the South had won. So “that is what the [Union victory in] the Civil War accomplished. It made us an ‘is.’”
This doesn’t seem like an implausible interpretation to me: The seceding states certainly thought they were responding to an already ongoing process of centralization, and the Union victory was certainly seen (by, e.g., Lincoln) as a victory for the concept of a unified nation; but at the same time, the war itself quite obviously left behind some strengthened feelings about divisions within the country.
Quote
October 13, 2009, 6:11 pmlatinist says:
And, off-topic, but my own mildly irritated reaction to the original quote about “what the Civil War accomplished” would be: didn’t the Civil War actually accomplish something else too? Something to do with labor conditions for a large portion of the Southern population?
Quote
October 13, 2009, 6:14 pm