Are or Is

(Taken from Google hits):

The Australian Government has made a strong commitment to fight terrorism and increase the security of all Australians.

governments target critical systems including. ..

Governments rely far too much on outside contractors to deliver IT solutions…

This secret World Government thing is tricky you know?

Government is not God.

When do we use plural then and singular? (easy: subject-verb agreement) (Please I want to hear that ‘s’ after ‘t’, otherwise it sounds like you are saying government in singular, and remember how /t/ sounds in English, it’s different from the Spanish /t/)

WHEREAS:

Akron/Family are four extremely nice, sincere and well-mannered young men from rural America who came to NYC…

Bush Family are nazi…

Family is above all.

When do we use plural then and singular? (not that easy, read below)

Singular nouns or noun phrases take a singular form of the verb. There are however some nouns which can take either a singular or a plural verb depending on whether they are seen as a single entity or as a number of individuals. Some examples of this are: family, committee, team, board…

Indicate here whether the verb should be singular or plural and consider why these might cause problems.