Robert Zakiev
Media says or media say? Hey all! The word media is being commonly used by everybody to refer to various news sources. Clearly, the word is the plural form of "medium". That brings me to my question — does the word media take a plural verb? Should it be: "The media says Mr. Foo is guilty of malfeasance" or "The media say Mr. Foo is guilty of malfeasance"? Many thanks!
Nov 14, 2016 10:38 AM
Answers · 7
1
The way I understand it, British English is more flexible than American English when it comes to whether or not a collective noun takes plural or singular. This is what the Oxford Dictionaries has to say about “media” (slightly rewritten by me): In the sense ‘television, radio, and the press collectively’, media behaves as a collective noun (like staff or clergy, for example), which means that it is now acceptable in standard English for it to take either a singular or a plural verb. source https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/media
November 14, 2016
From an American here, technically it should be "media say" but very often I hear (or even say myself) "media says."
November 14, 2016
Still haven’t found your answers?
Write down your questions and let the native speakers help you!