Usage of the term MacPorts (was: Topological sorting of perl modules)

[Joshua Root]

On 2014-8-13 20:22 , Ryan Schmidt wrote:
> 
> On Aug 13, 2014, at 3:38 AM, Mojca Miklavec wrote:
> 
>> PS/Off-topic: what's the proper way to talk about MacPorts in English?
>> "MacPorts is" or "MacPorts are"? (wxWidgets is / are)
> 
> I speak American English in which I've usually heard collective nouns used with singular verbs ("MacPorts is"). But in British English it is more common to use a plural verb ("MacPorts are"). In fact it depends on the context. Some info at http://alt-usage-english.org/groupnames.html

If we were talking about portmgr then I would agree. But I don't think
MacPorts is a collective noun, it's a proper noun denoting a single
project. That the name has a plural form probably confuses the issue
further.

If we referred to the ports themselves as MacPorts then it might be
different ("MacPorts are easy to write"), but almost nobody does that.

- Josh