Channel Nine can’t make up its mind
January 6th, 2014
I enjoyed watching the cricket over the summer, especially because the Australians regained the ashes in a glorious clean sweep. But that enjoyment was severely curtailed by the network’s terminal indecision about how to express simple english sentences. Occasionally (but only very occasionally, unfortunately) they got it right: “Australia leads by 300 runs”. But more often than not they screwed it up: “Australia need 3 wickets”, or “Australia are batting”.
Let’s make it perfectly clear, Nine: The Australian cricket team is a team. Singular. Referring to “Australia” as a plural is wrong. All references should be in the singular. Here are the correct phrases:
“Australia leads by …”
“Australia is …”
“Australia needs …”
If you want to refer to the members of the team, then use a personal collective, like “What the English batsmen need is …” (not “What England need …”).
The unfortunate thing is, because these mistakes are so public and the networks are (erroneously) seen as authorities, these mistakes take traction and are perpetuated by those that view these networks. So the mistakes grow, and more people use the language incorrectly. Yet again, I offer my professional services to the networks to assist them in improving the language skills of their on-air talent and super writers.
Unfortunately, even those writing the text that appeared on the big scoreboard got it wrong. In fact, even though Nine got it right occasionally, the scoreboard guys got it consistently wrong – at EVERY ground! Cricket Australia needs to take that one up.