My apologies that my colloquialism jars your ears.
But as someone who was visiting your fair Isle - I loved the Lake District by the way - you do treat your collective nouns differently than we do do you not? It didn’t upset me; just intrigued me.
I don’t know about the UN. I was making a joke. But I know I’ve seen the word ‘team’ followed by a verb in its plural form. Feel free to elaborate, and I was not trying to offend - just make a grammatical comparison.
Please don’t apologise - my post was entirely good-humoured and no offence was taken!
I lived in the US for a few years so I’m quite well tuned in to the differences between English and American English. I love the diversity of the language and the organic way it evolves into regional variations.
From an English perspective, I would generally use the plural for smaller or more familiar subjects such as a football team which is clearly made up of individuals but would resort to the singular for larger and more homogenous entities such as the UN, NATO or the inland revenue service!
Any criticism of American English found in my posts is purely for sake of friendly banter, not cultural imperialism. :)