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Jamaica has or have snakes? Which is correct? Explain

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  • Can you be more specific about what you find confusing about this?
    – Catija
    Commented Jun 19, 2018 at 22:27
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    Jamaica is a country and a singular noun, which means a singular verb shall be used after it (like in "Japan has four distinct seasons" or "America's got talent" ("has got" but not "have got").
    – Enguroo
    Commented Jun 19, 2018 at 23:26

1 Answer 1

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Normally, the verb agrees with the subject in number, so

This region has snakes.

Those regions have snakes.

Countries are normally singular:

Jamaica has snakes.

even if grammatically they look plural:

The Seychelles has snakes.

The United States has snakes.

What might be confusing you is that collective nouns (nouns denoting a collection of people) sometimes take a plural verb when the sense is that your are talking about what the people do or are, rather than what the group as a whole is:

Manchester United has/have scored a goal.

The committee is/are worried.

And this can even apply to names of countries when it means a the national team in some competition:

Jamaica has/have scored a goal.

Using plural in these cases is more common in British than American English.

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