Learn English – How to report the scores of a game

word-choice

In some games like basketball or ping-pong, there are two teams and they have scores.

For example, one team has 10, and other has 15, how can I tell others the scores of the two teams?

  1. The scores are 10 and 15
  2. The score is 10 15
  3. The score is 10 versus 15

Also I'm not sure whether to use is or are here.

Best Answer

In basketball, and team sports in general, the simplest way to tell the score is to start with the team in the lead. Using your example, if Team Two has 20 and Team One has 10, you would say:

Team Two leads, 20 to 10.

To address your follow-up question: while a team is comprised of players, the name of the team is expressed as a whole, so you want to use is. To express the score in a more formal way, you would start with the tally, then finish with the team in the lead:

The score is 20 to 10, Team Two.

I am not 100% certain, but I believe Ping-Pong uses serving to express scores. So if Player One has 5, Player Two has 8 and Player One is serving, it would be:

Five serving eight.

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