[hamburgenglish]

There are naturally bridges that must not be crossed!

By the way the line in my post "can form a merged collective" should be "can't"

Changes in the language grammar against a "norm" or what could be described as "grammatically correct", can come in many forms. These forms can be specific to an industry, area, culture or class.

The above forms can be further grouped into "perception" and by perception I mean how one may perceive the person using the language.

In the above, certain incorrect grammatical forms for instance American English; "did you do it yet?" are internationally accepted and taught in the classroom however, some forms such as your example; "She don't got nothing with her" are not!

One may ask why?

My advice in the classroom is to use your intellect and this will tell you what is suitable and what is not.

In respect to ....

"how much flexibility do we give to adding an "s" to collective nouns?"

Either you know it is ok, or you don't. Teachers come in many forms and with differing levels of "let's say" international, business and industry exposure. This is not a classification of whether a teacher is good or not, rather one of "how far" can that teacher expand their teaching in an acceptable way. For instance; there are not many teachers that understand "basic English" ...... <smile> or to use its more international term "simplified English", but this does not mean they are not a good teachers.

All teachers should not rest on their laurels as English is alive and changing; so is international perception and use. The expansion of a teacher's exposure allows them to expand their teaching and also makes them more suitable for certain training objectives e.g. It is better to teach American English to people working with Americans than British English; even though British English would well suffice.

rob