How to address number for teams, companies and other collectives

Q:

Dear Grammer Cop:

Which of the following is correct?

Who are the worst team in baseball? or Who is the worst team in baseball?

Ben and Nora

A:

A team is a collective, like a flock of geese or a bunch of bananas. Collectives act as a single unit, so they are treated in the singular. This goes for teams, companies and any group that, for the purposes of the sentence they appear in, act as one.

So, the correct answer is “Who is the worst team in baseball?”

Now, the Brits will give you an argument over this, and it’s one of my pet peeves. They INSIST on referring to collectives in the plural, but only when it comes to teams or companies, not groups like “a pack of wolves”, then they use the singular. It makes my skin crawl to hear something like, “Microsoft are releasing a new version of Windows today.” ...but that’s what they would say in England.

Good thing we’re not in England ;-)