I agree totally with you.

Google is an excellent online reference source and 'encylopedia', however when it comes to grammar, when in doubt I use a major periodical or newspaper like the New York Times. So in your examples, BBC is a credible source, while most academians do not regard wikipedia as reliable. The New York Times uses 'Olympics are' in several citations. For example: 'Are the olympics more trouble than they are worth'. http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2012/04/02/are-the-olympics-more-trouble-than-theyre-worth/how-the-2012-olympic-games-help-londoners. On the other hand, I agree that 'Games' is a plural noun, but I can find no reference that 'The olympics' is a collective noun. My dictionary defines 'the olympics' as a reference to 'the olympic games' and therefore uses the plural noun. Therefore, I believe 'are' is the correct verb in both cases.

To me the word 'Olympics' when used as an event is singular, but in general I would use a plural verb. I've been watching the Olympics on TV for the last four days. So would i say, 'They are so exciting to watch!' or 'It' is so exciting to watch. If I said 'it', I might think I'm talking about 'the TV'. Whereas if I said 'They', I would know it was the actually sports/games in the Olympics that were exciting.

I don't know - it's a hard one.
J.

I still think that 'The Olympics are' sounds better and more natural than using the singular. We've been saying it for so many years that it sounds more like a plural noun than a collective one.

Thanks for the article. :)

Every time I hear or see a new reference I question it now. In fact, we had to go back to our original lesson plan because we found a few places where we missed a few references related to our own decision (such as in a question form: Are the Olympics...Is the Olympics...) This debate is still open. Please share your thoughts and tell us which team you are cheering for. Most of our team members are Canadian. Go Canada!

Thanks for all the great comments! I've found myself saying both 'the Olympics is' and 'the Olympics are' this week. It's a tricky one! Kathleen, thanks for your info re: sources. I did check into some more reliable sources such as the BBC and CNN, but I found that they mostly avoided using the Olympics as a subject and thus avoided the problem altogether. I'm doing some work for Canada Wide Media at the moment, so I might be able to ask the TV Week staff what they've been doing in terms of singular or plural verbs with the Olympics.

If you go to tvweek.com and type in 'Olympics is' and 'Olympics are,' you can see plenty of examples of both. I guess it depends on the writer! The good news is that you can't really go wrong. :)

Hi there,

I was looking for an answer to this myself. Merriam-Webster Collegiate lists 'Olympic Games' as a plural noun. I believe Third New World has a listing for Olympics but I do not have access to it at the moment. I can see an argument either way, so perhaps it depends on the perspective of the sentence. Thank you for your insight! :)

ps I meant to say that if you check out a Google Ngram and run 'Olympics is, Olympics are' (without the quotes), the usage is remarkably similar over time (both in U.S. English and British English). :)

Logically we couldnt use 'Olympics is' or 'the Olympic Games is' anyway. Nice tho, I totally agree with you

we can consider it single if it means a symbol or a unit or collective.
we can consider it plural if it means the games and all kinds of games played or practiced during it.(that according to me )

could I know comments please?

i want a list of plural nouns that treated as singular like , news , furniture....please?

Thank you for your precise explanations. I need to check it to make a speech manuscript on the Olympic Games.

As a professional writer and editor with over 25 years experience and education, I would completely agree with your conclusion. Here is my logic: 'The Olympics' is an event, a singular event. It can also be used to mean an entity, a singular entity. Because of this consistent implication of singularity in common meaning, I would give it a singular verb. Thus, 'Olympics IS'. However, 'Olympic Games' or 'Olympic games' implies a plural collection of events within the big event. The plural nature of this phrase requires a plural verb: 'Olympic Games ARE'.

Another good example of this is the proper use of a singular verb with the word 'media' - it is most proper to say for example, 'The American media is...' .

Also, we've learned a lot about capitalization from this post. Am I right to capitalize 'Winter' whenever referring to the Games? 'The Winter Olympic competitions are always in the northern hemisphere.'

I suppose it depends to a certain extent whether we are descriptive or prescriptive people.

A look at Google n-grams shows OLYMPICS ARE more popular than OLYMPICS IS. However, a look at Google trends shows OLYMPICS IS more popular than OLYMPICS ARE.

For my money either is fine; let's wait and see what time says about this.

One thing that I haven't seen addressed with this issue is how to refer to two or more Olympiads! Any thoughts on this? The question raised itself in my mind when I noted that the bbc.co.uk website had an article entitled: 'Sochi 2014: Is it fair to compare Olympics?' It feels somehow not quite right... as an ancient Greek idea, should there not be a Greek ending?... Olypmpices or something?... Just a thought.

Hello. I am from Uzbekistan. It is common issue in my country . Every time we take part in exams we will be asked this and I gues. It is so confussion that nobody solve the test which we will be given

Looking for a quick suggestion on the correct usage of the word ' Olympic '
Youth Gospel Olympic or Youth Gospel Olympics????