Parsnipgirl took me to task over this disturbing thought:
2. R.E.M. weren't THAT bad. Especially their earlier stuff
She claims that rock band names are always singular*. I had no idea. I find "R.E.M. wasn't that bad." questionable at best. And my intuition is that most band names trigger plural agreement on the verb.
I did some Google counts with different types of band names (I left out obvious polurals like "The Rolling Stones" or "The Sex Pistols") to see what everyone else thinks. Here are the results.
Search terms Ghits
"R.E.M. were" 28,000
"R.E.M. was" 62,000
"XTC were" 565
"XTC was" 11,600
"ACDC were" 836
"ACDC was" 2,760
"The Clash were" 43,100
"The Clash was" 49,700
"The Who were" 52,000
"The Who was" 88,900
"Steppenwolf were" 1,900
"Steppenwolf was" 555
"Black Flag were" 1
"Black Flag was" 11
"Credence Clearwater Revival were" 41
"Credence Clearwater Revival was" 37
"Nirvana were" 31,200
"Nirvana was" 85,700
"Joy Division were" 9,180
"Joy Division was" 10,700
"Funkadelic were" 1,770
"Funkadelic was" 593
"Husker Du were" 501
"Husker Du was" 418
"Soundgarden were" 758
"Soundgarden was" 10,800
Man, these are all over the place. There are a lot of confounding factors affecting these Ghit counts because many band names are homophonous with other words. "XTC", "Credence Clearwater Revival", "Husker Du", "Joy Division", "Funkadelic", and "Soundgarden" seem to give the clearest data.
Of all the names, only "Steppenwolf", "Funkadelic", and "Husker Du" have a clear majority of plural Ghits.
To try and get around the ambiguity problem I tested the same group of bands with the verb rule. I figure this is more likely to get me to rock n' roll contexts. Here are the results:
Search term Ghits
"R.E.M. rule" 446
"R.E.M. rules" 1240
"XTC rule" 21
"XTC rules" 411
"ACDC rule" 219
"ACDC rules" 1770
"The Clash rule" 260
"The Clash rules" 82
"The Who rule" 762
"The Who rules" 852
"Steppenwolf rule" 4
"Steppenwolf rules" 320
"Black Flag rule" 1
"Black Flag rules" 11
"Credence Clearwater Revival rule" 41
"Credence Clearwater Revival rules" 37
"Nirvana rule" 31,200
"Nirvana rules" 85,700
"Joy Division rule" 9,180
"Joy Division rules" 10,700
"Funkadelic rule" 1,770
"Funkadelic rules" 593
"Husker Du rule" 501
"Husker Du rules" 418
"Soundgarden rule" 758
"Soundgarden rules" 10,800
Of these, "The Clash", "Funkadelic" and "Husker Du" have clear plural majorities. So there is some overlap. I think "The Clash" data point can be explained by the fact that British English treats all of these as plurals and there are probably more British Websites claiming that "The Clash Rule!"
*See Arnold Zwicky's timely Language Log post on "singular" and "plural" in English nouns.
