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Beanbag Posted 20 years ago
Grammar

There is/are ___ (many nouns).

The pattern:
There ( ) [ ] in the room.

Some example sentences:
There (is) [a cat] in the room.
There (are) [2 cats] in ther room.

So my question, if the stuff in the square brackets is: [a cat, a dog, and a ball], should we use (is), or should we use (are)?

Is the correct formulation:

There are a cat, a dog and a ball in the room. ?

OR

There is a cat, a dog, and a ball in the room. ?

OR

Some other formulation. ?
  

Top answer

"There is" is used almost idiomatically this way. If you are doing an overall recitation of the "stuff" that's in the room, you can easily make it singular. If someone is asking for a detailed account of what's in the room, with each item considered alone, then you can use are.

— BarbaraPA

  • "There is" is used almost idiomatically this way.
  • If you are doing an overall recitation of the "stuff" that's in the room, you can easily make it singular.
  • If someone is asking for a detailed account of what's in the room, with each item considered alone, then you can use are.
  • "
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4 Answers
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"There is" is used almost idiomatically this way. If you are doing an overall recitation of the "stuff" that's in the room, you can easily make it singular. If someone is asking for a detailed account of what's in the room, with each item considered alone, then you can use are. I think that very few people would think that "there is" is wrong unless the first thing that followed it was a plural
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Grammar Geek <>"There is" is used almost idiomatically this way. If you are doing an overall recitation of the "stuff" that's in the room, you can easily make it singular. If someone is asking for a detailed account of what's in the room, with each item considered alone, then you can use are. I think that very few people would think that "there is" is wrong unless
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Marius Hancu
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It can be hard to decide between what sounds right and what is right. I'd rewrite, In the room are a cat, a dog, two lizards and what looks like about 20 fish in a huge tank.

It's the "There is" that begs for the "is."
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