Collective Nouns in English

choi

en Kesling and Mark Peters, Police Give New Details of Missouri Death; Ferguson Officer’s name is released; Police allege teen linked to robbery. Wall Street Journal, Aug 16, 2014.

Excerpt in the window of print: Police showed video alleging Michael Brown were tied to a robbery before the shooting.

My comment:
(a) My focus is the verb “allege”--whether it should take singular or plural form. Muddling the water is Webster’s Third New International Dictionary (1964), one of whose example for the noun “police” is: “The police was there in force--Arthur Morrison”where a singular verb was used. A librarian in Boston (white, native speaker) thought it should be police “were” there in force.
(b) Matching verbs to collective nouns. Oxforddictionaries.com, undated
www.oxforddictionaries.com/us/wo ... tive-nouns-american
(There are a few collective nouns (in both British and American English) that are always used with a plural verb, the most common of which are police and people”)
(c) Roger Woodham, Learn It; Noun-verb agreement, BBC Learning English, undated.
www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learn ... t/learnitv358.shtml
(These collective nouns, including police, “always take a plural verb”)