In reply to:

On the whole, Americans lean to the singular and Britons to the plural

Nope, nope, nope--the sense *I intend to convey is that the team IS, the family IS, and so forth.

Well, that *is what Bryson is *describing....


And very succinctly too. It is interesting how ingrained the respective choices are. If asked, I would automatically say "Arsenal are my favourite team in the Premiership", irregardless of any Latin phrases used to persuade me otherwise. I just can't orientate myself to say it differently.