By Constructions, Compound subjects

Hi Teo I hope the following will be helpful. In BrE, it should be There is a cat and a dog. Below is the information extracted from two books on English usage. The first book is on British English usage, the second on American English usage. 'The Right Word at the Right Time'...

'The Right Word at the Right Time' states as follows: There is an apple and pears for dessert. There are apples and a pear for dessert. Merriam-Webster 'Guide to English Usage' states as follows: When a compound subject follows the verb and the first element is singular, the verb may...

Kooyeen wrote: Yoong Liat wrote: Yoong Liat wrote: There is / are a cat and a dog. (In AmE, both are acceptable.)Hi Yoong,I didn't know that, where did you find out it? I always thought "are" didn't sound very good. Maybe it's ok but it's not used much?Hi Kooyeen 'The...

‘The Right Word at the Right Time’, states as follows: There is an apple and pears for dessert. There are apples and a pear for dessert. ‘Merriam-Webster 'Guide to English Usage' states as follows: When a compound subject follows the verb and the first element is singular, the...

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The are grammatically agrees with protocols. I believe that the Columbia Guide to Standard AmE addresses this problem as a problem of the 'near-compound' subject, because (to me) the commas, creating 'non-restrictive' content, are quite similar to m-dashes in their intent:'In compound like...

Hi, it's me, Ralf, the starter of this thread. Thanks for your answers so far. A post in another thread pointed me to the "American Heritage - Book of English Usage", where I found this section: According to the standard rule, when the pronoun there precedes a verb such as be, seem, or appear,...