grammatical number - "Her whole family IS/ARE biologists"?



I'm not sure whether to put is (number agreeing with the singular her whole family) or are (number agreeing with plural biologists) in this sentence:



Her whole family is/are biologists.




After some more searching, it seems to make it correct, the whole would need to be removed.


Based on this other question, I think "Her family are biologists." is technically correct but "All of her family are biologists sounds better."


Still not certain.



Answer



I would use "are" in this context, even though the word "family" could go either way. Even so, I think that "are" is more suitable because you are labelling multiple people as biologists.


However, the sentence could be worded in a better way, like: 1) Everyone in her family is a biologist. 2) All of her family members are biologists.


That way, there is less confusion with verb agreement. Either way, it is good to know that either "are" and "is" can be used with the unit "family".


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