- Cattle is a plural word used to talk collectively about bulls, cows and calves; it has no singular and cannot be used for counting individual animals (one cannot say, for instance, three cattle): Many cattle are suffering from a disease called BSE. (NOT much cattle)

- Police is normally used as a plural: The police are looking for a fair-haired man in his twenties. (NOT The police is looking)

- trousers, jeans, pyjamas (US pajamas), pants, scales, scissors, glasses, binoculars, pliers, and the names of many similar divided objects are plural and have no singular forms: Your jeans are too tight. ‚Where are my glasses?‘‚ They’re on your nose.‘

- other common word which are normally plural include: clothes, congratulations, contents, customs (at a frontier), funds (=money), goods, manners
(=social behaviour), the Middle Ages (=period of history), oats (but corn, wheat, and barley are singular uncountable), odds (=chances), outskirts, premises (=building), regards, remains, savings, stairs (=a flight of stairs), steps (=a flight of steps), surrounding, thanks

Pronunciation of regular plurals

• nouns ending in sibilants /s, z, š, ž, č, dž/, add /iz/
buses, guises, crashes, garages, watches, bridges
• nouns ending in other unvoiced consonants (except /s, š, č/), add /s/
cats, maps, sticks, myths
• nouns ending in vowels and voiced consonants (except /z, ž, dž/), add /z/
boys, dogs, girls, times unions
• plural with irregular pronunciation
baths /ba:θs OR ba:δz/, roofs /ru:fs OR ru:vz/, houses /hausiz OR huaziz/, mouths, truths, youths, paths, wreaths

- 3rd person singular forms (catches, wants, runs) and possessive forms (George’s, Mark’s) follow the same pronunciation rules as regular plurals

Singular nouns with plural verbs

Groups of people

In British English, singular words like family, tem, government, which refer to groups of people can be used either singular or plural verbs and pronouns:
This team is/are going to lose.
- plural forms are common when the group is considered a collection of people doing personal things like deciding, hoping or wanting; and in these cases we use who, not which, as a relative pronoun. Singular forms (with which as a relative pronoun) are more common when the group is been as an impersonal unit.

Compare:
My family have decided to move to Nottingham. They think it’s a better place to live. The average British family has 3,6 members. It is smaller and richer than 50 years ago. My firm are wonderful. They do all they can for me. My firm was founded in the 18th century.
- When a group noun is used with a singular determiner (a/an, each, every, his, that), singular verbs and pronouns are normal:
The team are full of enthusiasm. A team which is full of enthusiasm has a better chance of winning. (more natural than A team who are full…)