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I hear the TV weatherman saying "there is clouds coming." I hear "there is four ways..." Maybe it's me, but more and more I notice problems people have matching their subjects with the proper form of to be. Sometimes it sounds like if the noun that precedes the verb ends in an "s," they use a plural "are," even if it's not the subject.
Another is/are problem I often hear on TV is "only one of four cars are black."
Glenn said:
I have noticed that. I must admit that I have caught myself with "there's" and a plural. I don't think I would do it with the full "there is."
We do tend to run things together in normal conversation so that the "i" is not noticed, and we formalize in writing by calling it a contraction. Fortunately, unless a direct quote, it gets done correctly when written.
I'm right there with Glenn: I often find myself using a disagreed subject and verb when beginning a sentence with "There". The queer thing is that find it jarring when I hear others thus use it. I think I understand it, though. It's just so easy to use the contraction "there's" with any passive phrase following, but "there're" is a bit discordant. The former uses only one syllable, the latter two; so the simpler will always prevail. I usually try to gauge it in advance, but sometimes it turns out I'm talking about more things than I had predicted, I guess.
None of this is informative, but I wonder about this problem. I notice that I fail to speak grammatically in those situations, but it is somehow not that bothersome to me. Meanwhile, I cringe every time I hear or read someone use comprise improperly (which is almost always), and that seems exceedingly more esoteric.
Any others have that problem?
Of course, there is some wiggle room when discussing measurable mass amounts, as opposed to countable objects:
"There's three pounds of butter in that dessert, and it only serves 6!"
"There are three cups in the cupboard." But " There's three cups of sugar left in that canister."
Here are some significant results from a Google search on the phrase "there's three (four) (five)":
Cosmo There's three sides to every story
Robert Burns There's three true gude fellows
There's three true gude fellows,
There's three true gude fellows,
There's three true gude fellows
Down ayont yon glen.Its now the day is dawin,
But or night to fa' in,
Whase cock's best at crawin,
Willie thou sall ken.
If Robert Burns can do it, why can't I?
Maybe there's (purposely singular) no problem with the ubiquitous there's for both singular and plural objects. We all understand each other whether we say it correctly or not. Personally, I cling to the there's/there're distinction in my speech, but there're is damned difficult to say. So maybe it should go the way of the Dodo. By the way, Spanish-speakers seem to do fine with only one word for it: hay.
Martha Barnette
Grant Barrett
Grant Barrett
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