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Guest Posted 22 years ago
Grammar

Is/are: "Here's five reasons..."

Is it just me or a change in our lexicon, but you hear people on the street, teachers, anchors, advertisements saying such things as "Here's five reasons why you need this product." "There's several reasons for this," etc. Yet these same people would not say, here is five reasons...or there is several reasons. When instructors start using it, for example, it may be just more than slang. Is it becoming acceptable as our language evolves?
  

Top answer

I think you might find the following paragraph interesting. For others around the country who are wondering how best to help a neighbor in need, I strongly urge them to think about joining one of these service clubs, a club whose sole existence is to help make America a better place. And so, I know there are some in our country that say what can I do to help.

  • I think you might find the following paragraph interesting.
  • For others around the country who are wondering how best to help a neighbor in need, I strongly urge them to think about joining one of these service clubs, a club whose sole existence is to help make America a better place.
  • And so, I know there are some in our country that say what can I do to help.
  • Well, here is five good opportunities.
  • Guess who said that?
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5 Answers
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I think you might find the following paragraph interesting.
For others around the country who are wondering how best to help a neighbor in need, I strongly urge them to think about joining one of these service clubs, a club whose sole existence is to help make America a better place. And so, I know there are some in our country that say what can I do to help. Well, here is
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Prescriptive grammars will insist upon "here are", "there are" in the contexts identified above, especially in writing. Nevertheless, it's not just you. That is, you are not the lone ranger in observing this phenomenon.

It's possible that "here's" and "there's" are or are becoming coalesced forms like "gonna". Note how "gonna" and "going to" are actually distinct in meaning; they can
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Thank you for your answer. Intuitively, I would have said "are" as well. But I was surpised to see Pres. Bush's stuff at his official Whitehouse website. So I thought that maybe my intuition was wrong. Anyway, thanks for the clarification.
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Hi, Guest. Emotion: smile
English is not my first language and I don't live in an english-speaking community, so I cannot say how frequently "
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Native British speaker thinks:

I think this is just a case of being a bit lazy verbally. I don't think anyone actually says 'There is Five'. People say 'There are five' or There's five' (as the contraction of 'there is').

I would guess that it is because most English people like to contract their words where possible, particularly in informal situations/speech. The contract

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