samwong Wrote:So the takeaway in this SC problem is that a reference to a specific group of people (ie: the Indians, the Germans, the Chinese...) is considered plural.
These are actually legitimate plurals, not collective nouns. E.g., "the French" is the plural of "a Frenchman/Frenchwoman".
The word "people" is another exception to the "collective noun singular rule".
No. "People" is a plural noun. It's the plural of "person", in exactly the same way that, say, "children" is the plural of "child", or "men" of "man", or "women" of "woman".
So, nothing you've mentioned here is an "exception" to anything, except spelling rules. (I.e., most plurals end with -s. Since these don't end with -s, they are confusing.)
To test whether something is a "collective noun" or genuinely a plural, test whether you can put a number in front of it.
"In the audience at the event were 5000 French and 2000 Chinese" --> Legitimate.
"There were 10,000 people at the event" --> Legitimate.
So "French", "Chinese", and "people" are just normal plural nouns.
"This school has 25,000 student body" --> not legitimate, so "student body" is actually a collective noun.