Hospital hygiene

The last word of la vaccinazione del personale looks harmless and carries the commonest disagreement between the two languages. Il personale is a collective noun, and in Italian a collective noun is grammatically one thing: il personale è vaccinato, il personale ha ricevuto la circolare — singular verb, singular adjective, no exceptions to learn. British English does the opposite with the very word that translates it. « Staff » takes a plural verb almost without fail: « the staff are vaccinated », « the staff have been told », and the same goes for « the team », « the committee », « the government » and « the board », because a British speaker hears the members rather than the body. Italian hears only the body, and the rule holds right through: la squadra ha vinto, il governo ha deciso, and la gente pensa, where la gente pensano is simply wrong. Two things follow. A plural verb in Italian is a signal that the subject is a real plural and not a collective at all — gli addetti sono vaccinati. And il personale cannot be counted: for a headcount the language changes noun altogether.