@f42fdd5b I do’t know if you’ve gotten a good explanation yet, and I certainly don’t have the official grammar verbiage to use, but think of it like this:

The pair (or group or bus or building) is a “container.” The bus goes, singluar. The bus full of boys goes, singular. What’s in the bus? A boy? Or a bunch of boys? So the singular/plural is not about what’s inside the “container.” The container can hold multiple, plural items.

At least that’s how it helps me think of it! 

 @1ec4036f

Thanks Steve. It sort of makes sense now. 

 @f42fdd5b I've never had to think about it before, so thanks for starting that rabbit hole! I hope it helps (not that grammatical rules make much sense themselves a lot of times). 

 @1ec4036f

Hee hee hee. In the past year or so, I've been noticing some of the odd usages we have in English. Some are covered in either the Oxford English Dictionary in my Kindle or in Wikipedia.

I've had a lot of fun learning some of this stuff. Interesting rabbit holes to explore.