Collective nouns are a very common area of confusion among authors and editors. An editor contacted me regarding the following sentence that appeared in a journal manuscript:

The majority of the possible methods available relies on discretion.

The editor questioned whether the verb form should actually be “rely,” rather than “relies.”

To get to the bottom of this, it’s crucial to be sure whether you are talking about the subject in the singular or plural sense. 

Let’s look at a rule on the Grammarbook.com website (a great resource). As always, the end of the quoted material is denoted by the box (∎):

From The 15 Rules of Subject–Verb Agreement (Grammarbook.com):

• Rule 15: Collective nouns such as “team” and “staff” may be either singular or plural depending on their use in the sentence.

Examples:

The staff is in a meeting.

“Staff” is acting as a unit here. (Use the singular verb “is.”)

The staff are in disagreement about the findings.

“The staff” are acting as separate individuals in this example. (Use the plural verb “are.”)

The sentence would read even better as:

The staff members are in disagreement about the findings.

∎

Let’s look at another example, using the two musicians in the photo. We will look at them as a team.

Let’s say they talked about what songs they were going to play for the tourists on a particular morning and agreed on the song list:

The team was in agreement.

In this case they are functioning as a single unit: It would be correct to use the singular verb, “was.”

But if they disagreed, they are functioning as individuals and the plural verb, “were,” is correct:

The team were in disagreement.

This can sound awkward. As was suggested earlier, a case such as this is often clearer and more effective if rephrased:

The team members were in disagreement.

Let’s go back to the original question:

The majority of the possible methods available relies on discretion.

“Majority” is a collective noun. Depending on the context, collective nouns can be either singular or plural. 

• The determining factor is whether you’re talking about a group or the individual members of the group.

In this context I would definitely change “relies” to “rely.” We are looking at the effectiveness of “possible methods” collectively.

Be careful with collective nouns: Pay attention to whether the subject is singular or plural.

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