2

I am aware that we alway treat the police as singular when we refer to it as social instutution. But what about if are refering to police as a group of people who are policemen? For example:

There is/are a lot of police around the crime.

Dmytro O'Hope
  • 15,175
  • 31
  • 154
  • 303
  • Note that we ***don't*** always treat the police as singular when we refer to it [them!?] as a social institution. Google Books has more hits for [*the police **are** an institution*](https://www.google.com/search?tbm=bks&q=%22the+police+are+an+institution%22) than for [*the police **is** an institution*](https://www.google.com/search?tbm=bks&q=%22the+police+is+an+institution%22) (where it's only the ***institution*** that's always syntactically singular, not the ***police***). – FumbleFingers Jan 29 '20 at 13:53

1 Answers1

-1

The police were informed about the matter. It is a collective noun like "cattle" and takes a plural verb.

Hunter
  • 79
  • 5