"is played" or "are played"?

Question

"Draughts are played on a board with squares" Is draughts sing or plural? thanks

Answer 1

Singular. At least, checkers, which is the same thing and sounds sort of plural unless you know its a single boardgame, would be "Checkers is played with..." The rules in English about treating ambiguous nouns as grammatically singular or plural are not as strict as those in Spanish, and things like 'the band' and 'the council' can go either way, depending on whether you want to emphasize their unity or individuality. Not exactly the case here, but it still sounds better to me to say, "Checkers is..."