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the Olympic Games as a singular noun?

Can the Olympic Games be treated as singular when you regard them collectively as one big sports event?

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6 Answers

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  • 3 weeks ago
    Favourite answer

     Most examples of “the Olympic Games” used a plural verb, 

     although I did see some examples of singular verbs used, too. 

     We at ESL Library decided to go with “the Olympics” + singular verb 

     and “the Olympic Games” + plural verb. 

     Basically, “the Olympics” is a collective noun like team or United States, 

     and usually takes a singular verb.

  • Anonymous
    3 weeks ago

    How can it be single when it ends in an -s?  There will be more than one game.  It will be the Olympic GameS, so it's plural.

  • 3 weeks ago

    That would be quite acceptable in American English, less so in British English.

    In effect, rather than talking about games (specific games, the Olympic games) you are talking about an event named "the Olympic Games".  It is employed as a proper name.

  • 3 weeks ago

    I have never heard of the term the "Olympic game" used at all. There's "the olympicS". But that's still plural. So the answer is NO!

    Also the "Olympic gameS" is plural.

    Source(s): Native American English speaker for many decades.
  • 3 weeks ago

    I did some Google research- if you put a phrase such as "The Olympic games is", you'll get hits on sites that use that phrase. There were examples of both usages, but this blog explains the most common usages- "Olympics" is considered singular, while "Olympic games" is considered plural.

    https://blog.esllibrary.com/2012/07/29/olympics-si...

  • 3 weeks ago

    Yes....... It is the same as using "the term World Series" in a singukar fashion to describe the entire event.

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