Journal: "Is" vs. "are"

(and that's an I in Is, not an L as in ls :-)

A question came up in an article last month about British usage of "are" instead of "is" in referring to companies.

Re:Who the f*ck is BT? ;-) (Score:1) by Alan Shield (63455) on Friday June 11, @11:30PM (#9405253)

Clearly, whatever BT that we're talking about here happens to be a plural entity, whereas British Telecom is a single company (and should use the sinuglar "is" rather than "are").

But it's British Telecom, so 'are' is correct. Use of 'is' is an American thing.

Re:Who the f*ck is BT? ;-) (Score:2) by nojomofo (123944) on Monday June 14, @11:44AM (#9422390) Maybe you're joking and I don't get it.... I just don't understand this. As far as I know, the British conjugate the verb "to be" the same way we do here in the states: I am, you are, he is, she is, is is, we are, they are. So a single entity (like British Telecom) should be conjugated as "is". Do brits really use "are" in this case"? Why?

The British usage when referring to a company is to use "are" - I'm assuming because a company is a collection of individuals, hence plural, unlike the American usage of considering a company singular.