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ESL forum >
Message board > Is it OK to say this?
Is it OK to say this?
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Yulia Mo
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Is it OK to say this?
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Hello to everyone.
I was watching the Late Show the other day. So there was an actor, don �t remember his name. So he said two sentences with one structure that i �m not sure is right. He said:
There �s mosquitoes.
There �s two kids.
Is it OK to use IS here with plural?
Thanks in advance.
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25 Mar 2010
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Zora
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Natives don �t often think before they speak, and like in every language, they commit errors.
Grammatically those sentences aren �t correct. They should be:
There are mosquitoes.
There are two kids.
Regards,
Linda
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25 Mar 2010
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ELOJOLIE274
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no it �s not right according to the basic rules of grammar... but spoken english isn �t always following the rules of written english... was the actor british/american/australian or was he a non-native speaker?
the other day i watched a tv show, even though the actor had a prefect accent he was not a native speaker and he made a few mistakes... it might explain why he made mistakes...
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25 Mar 2010
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RabbitWho
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No they are right.
I was at a conference that mentioned this anomaly recently.
They gave the sentence to us and the native speakers in the audience (myself included) were not able to realize what was strange about it. Only the non-natives were able to "correct it"
This is said by everyone, so how can it be wrong?
We wouldn �t say "There is" + plural, but we do contract "There are" this way sometimes. Probably because "There �re" sounds like a stammer! Especially if you �re from a dialect that pronounces its Rs.
Anyway it �s just one of those things. In speech but not in formal writing. No need to mention it to your students and confuse them. ;)
Grammar = guidelines to make sure you are understood. We have to include strict grammar rules and ignore the exceptions for students to make their lives easier. It�s too much to learn every possibility.
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25 Mar 2010
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Yulia Mo
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Thanks to everyone
Sure, i �m not gonna teach my students to speak this way, i was just wondering myself...
I guess it �s the same as saying HE DON �T or NOBODY DOESN �T.
It �s like this in every language. We in Russian also make tons of mistakes not even realizing that grammatically it �s not correct. So if everyone says it, it cannot be wrong as it �s a spoken language.
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25 Mar 2010
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RabbitWho
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Yeah exactly! The only difference is that not everybody says
"He don �t".. It �s more colloquial, and it is something they tell us not to say in English class when we �re kids as far as I can tell everyone says this.
(I �m still forever saying "Amn �t" which is the nightmare of every Irish
English teacher.. but I �d say there �s just a few thousand people on the planet that say it! Language is fun :) Grammar is strange!)
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25 Mar 2010
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Lina Ladybird
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I know quite a few native English speakers, especially from the UK and they all say things like "look, there �s 2 women" or stuff like that. It �s not grammatically correct, but it �s everyday language and that �s why -in my opinion- you may use this kind of English provided you �re an advanced speaker!! ;) If your English is "broken" anyway and you say this kind of thing it will be considered a mistake, but if you �re a very fluent speaker who is using idioms it �s fine to speak this way.
We just shouldn �t teach our ss such unnecessary stuff. ;))))
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25 Mar 2010
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colibrita
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Yes, it �s incorrect but you �ll hear it loads in conversation. Plus questions with no S V inversion, just the voice to make them interrogative. Anyways it �s stg worth making Ss aware of, just tell them in their case it �s best not to get into these "bad habits" - our goal is that they should talk proper, innit? 
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25 Mar 2010
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