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Hi everyone! I am new to this forum and am so glad to have found it.
Anyway, I have a question that I've been scratching my head over. You see, I have this tendency to start my sentences a certain way whenever I talk about a certain subject. If I'm going to be talking about a male friend of mine, I will say, "There's this guy I know..." or if I'm talking about an article, it'll be "There's this article that I read..."
I was corrected and told that saying "there's this..." is actually improper English, as that indicates that the subject is actually right near you. Since I'm usually just talking about a subject that's not physically near me at the moment, I should say, "There's a boy that I know..." etc.
I know that the logic behind choosing "there's a" over "there's this..." is pretty self-explanatory and clear, but I'm wondering if "there's this..." is actually improper English. I hear it so often (and actually see it in articles), that I never really gave a second thought to it. Is "there's this..." actually improper, but due to overusage, it's become accepted?
Any insights/comments would be much appreciated!
I have so much to learn 🙂 Thank you!
I believe “this†is a definite article like “theâ€
where this refers to a specific object among objects like it.
I saw a man, not just any man but this man.
A read an article, not just any article but this article.
I think you provide more information when using this suggest you know the subject directly.
does “this†have to refer to something that is physically near you?
I don't think so
http://www.brainyquote.com/words/th/this229890.html
I suppose one could use "that" for more distant objects.
I was corrected and told that saying “there's this…†is actually improper English, as that indicates that the subject is actually right near you.
That's ridiculous! The correction of your speech was unwarranted. Saying “there's this boy I know†is akin to saying “there exists a boy whom I know.†As the Collins dictionaries put it, “there†can be “used as a grammatical subject with some verbs, especially be, when the true subject is an indefinite or mass noun phrase following the verb as complement.†In this case, “a boy that I know" is the indefinite noun phrase. Collins gives as an example “there is a girl in that office,†which is remarkably similar to the phrase you're asking about.
“This†is okay that way, too, though dictionaries tend to mark it as informal usage. That doesn't make it wrong, it's just that some thick-headed people who believe that we should speak on all occasions as if we're talking to the Queen or President will complain. They–the complainers, not the Queen or President–should be ignored.
Collins says, “informal an emphatic form of 'a' or 'the': used especially on relating a story I saw this big brown bear.â€
The New Oxford American Dictionary says, “informal used (chiefly in narrative) to refer to a person or thing previously unspecified : I turned around, and there was this big mummy standing next to us! | I've got this problem and I need help.“
This reminds me... A friend of mine speaks African-American Vernacular English (AAVE) as his main dialect, and he regularly says things like "It's a restaurant in Denver that serve only vegetarian food" where I would say "There's a restaurant in Denver that serves only vegetarian food." At first this seemed strange to me, but I've gotten used to it. I am assuming that this is a typical feature of AAVE, but I don't remember learning about it in my undergraduate sociolinguistics class.
Does AAVE in fact use "it" as a marker of general existence, instead of "there"?
Martha Barnette
Grant Barrett
Grant Barrett
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