Headquarters, singular or plural?
- Thread starter Packard
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Headquarters can be singular or plural. Here, a single headquarters is described. Use "is."
It would be unusual to use 'headquarters' as a plural unless you are talking about the headquarters of different companies or groups. By definition 'headquarters' is THE main location of activity, business, dealings, etc., so technically there shouldn't be more than one for any one group.
It's context sensitive, and may be either.
General Electric has its headquarters (sing.) in Fairfield, Ct.
General Electric and Pitney Bowes have their headquarters (pl.) in Fairfield County, Ct.
Precisely- that's a perfect example- the first references only one company and the second, regardless of whether the two companies are related or not, references two.
SPECTRE has [regional] headquarters in Kathmandu, Singapore, Sao Paulo, and various uncharted desert islands.
"Headquarters" when used for the main offices of a company is more commonly plural as in "The headquarters are in Paris".
Headquarters to denote authority is frequently singular as is "Headquarters has said we must used less paper."
However singular use is not wrong.
Headquarters to denote authority is frequently singular as is "Headquarters has said we must used less paper."
However singular use is not wrong.
Here's the American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language agreeing with Mystykmyk.
I wonder if there are regional differences as well. To me, in the northeast US, we always use "headquarters" as a singular (unless of course, in reference to more than one entity). This is an apparent contradition to that American Heritage reference. m-w.com says, "noun plural but singular or plural in construction".
I think modern usage does allow for a large or global company to have mutliple or regional headquarters.
I think modern usage does allow for a large or global company to have mutliple or regional headquarters.
My (ex-RAF) husband has just gone past, looked at the title on the screen and yelled Singular!
And indeed, if I were talking about a military HQ like the one I used to work in, I would definitely use "is".
But for a company headquarters (= the HQ of a single company), I'm pretty sure I use both "is" and "are". I was putting this down to that free-and-easy way we Brits have with collective nouns, which was why I was intrigued to come across the American Heritage Dictionary view.
Packard: if you've put any money on this, I very much doubt you'll collect. Whichever option you bet on...
And indeed, if I were talking about a military HQ like the one I used to work in, I would definitely use "is".
But for a company headquarters (= the HQ of a single company), I'm pretty sure I use both "is" and "are". I was putting this down to that free-and-easy way we Brits have with collective nouns, which was why I was intrigued to come across the American Heritage Dictionary view.
Packard: if you've put any money on this, I very much doubt you'll collect. Whichever option you bet on...
Actually, this isn't quite true. In the first example, "General Electric" is singular. In the second example, "General Electric and Pitney Bowes" is plural. Neither example illustrates whether "headquarters" is singular or plural.
Also, in the UK it's common for entities like companies to be treated as plural even when they seem to be logically singular. In the UK (but not in the USA) you would see "General Electric have their headquarters in Fairfield, Ct." You would even see "The Parliament are meeting today to discuss economic issues".
You would definitely not see "The Congress are meeting today" or even "The House of Representatives are meeting today" in American usage, and it would be marked wrong by any (American) English teacher.
The WR Dictionary says: ' [treated as sing. or pl.]'
Macmillan (British version), rather pedantically, says it after each sense:
Interestingly, this is left out in the American version.
Macmillan (British version), rather pedantically, says it after each sense:
Interestingly, this is left out in the American version.
It's true that the quoted example doesn't settle the issue, since "General Electric has ITS headquarters" does not reflect, and does not need to reflect, whether headquarters is plural or singular. Since GE is singular (at least to U.S. speakers), "its" is singular as well.
But that misses the more important point: when a usage rule is so ambiguous or unsettled that educated speakers may well disagree (and therefore think you are making an ignorant mistake even though you're not), try to rephrase the sentence so as to avoid that rule. And "General Electric has its headquarters in" (wherever) does that very nicely.
Maybe it's "the headquarter is" and "the headquarters are"?
Sorry, no: it's always "the headquarters" irrespective of whether the following verb is singular or plural.
Is there a reason why there is an s on the end?Sorry, no: it's always "the headquarters" irrespective of whether the following verb is singular or plural.
Why do we use the plural form? According to Why not “one headquarter”?, the singular head quarter was possible in the early 17th century, but eventually the plural form was used all the time (except in South Asia). The writers suggest that this might have been influenced by quarters, already used at that time to mean a singular place of abode.