American and British English grammatical differences
Some of the most notable differences between American English and British English are grammatical. Subject-verb agreement. In British English (BrE), collective nouns can take either singular ("formal agreement") or plural ("notional agreement") verb forms, according to whether the emphasis is on the body as a whole or on the individual members respectively; compare "a committee was appointed" with "the committee were unable to agree". The term "the Government" always takes a plural verb in British civil service convention, perhaps to emphasise the principle of cabinet collective responsibility. Compare also the following lines of  Elvis Costello's song "Oliver's Army": "Oliver's Army is here to stay / Oliver's Army are on their way ". Some of these nouns, for example "staff", actually combine with plural verbs most of the time. In American English (AmE), collective nouns are almost always singular in construction: "the committee was unable to agree". However, when a speaker wishes to emphasize that the individuals are acting separately, a plural pronoun may be employed with a singular or plural verb: "the team takes their seats", rather than "the team takes its seats". Such a sentence would most likely be recast  as "the team members take their seats". Despite exceptions such as usage in "The New York Times", the names of sports teams are usually treated as plurals even if the form of the name is singular. The difference occurs for all nouns of multitude, both general terms such as "team" and "company" and proper nouns (for example where a place name is used to refer to a sports team). For instance, Proper nouns that are plural in form take a plural verb in both AmE and BrE; for example, "The Beatles are a well-known band"; "The Diamondbacks are the  champions", with one major exception: in American English, "the United States" is almost universally used with a singular verb. Although the construction "the United States are" was more common early in the history of the country, as the singular federal government exercised more authority and a singular national identity developed (especially following the American Civil War), it became standard to treat "the United States" as a singular noun. Verbs. Transitivity. The following verbs show differences in transitivity between BrE and AmE: