There was/were

Question

I don't know which verb sounds natural in the following cases. Could you please tell me? There was/were not only a mistake but also some problems in his report.There was/were a mistake and some problems in his report.

Gamboler · Accepted Answer

You should use "was".

Read this, please.

Usually when you use “and” with the verb“to be”, you need to use the plural form of the verb, such as:

A dog and a cat are outside.

However, when you use “There” with “and” after the verb, this is not always true.

There were two dogs and cats outside. (correct)

There was a dog and a cat outside. (also correct)

The reason for this is that the second sentence is short for:

There was a cat outside, and there was a dog outside.

The answer to this problem is that you need to look at the first noun of the subject. If this noun is plural, the verb should be plural and vice versa. This also applies to subjects connected by “or”:

There is a fly and some mosquitoes in the room. (fly is singular, therefore you should use "is")

There was/were

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