<div style="text-align: center; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><font size="2">===============================================<br><b>L O W L A N D S - L - 17 March 2010 - Volume 04</b><br style="color: rgb(102, 102, 102);">
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===============================================<br></font></div><font size="2"><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">From: </span><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="gI"><span class="gD" style="color: rgb(121, 6, 25);">Brooks, Mark</span> <span class="go"><<a href="mailto:mark.brooks@twc.state.tx.us">mark.brooks@twc.state.tx.us</a>></span></span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
<span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">Subject: </span><span class="gI"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">LL-L "Grammar" 2010.03.17 (03) [EN]</span><br><br></span></font><p style="font-family: courier new,monospace;" class="MsoNormal">
<font size="2">Paul Anisman
wrote: “so that an utterance
such as "there's
three books on the table" has become extremely widespread across all
socioeconomic groups, while "there's books on the table" remains a
more stigmatized form.”</font></p>
<p style="font-family: courier new,monospace;" class="MsoNormal"><font size="2">Perhaps I can
speak only
for myself, but I don’t find any of Ron’s examples to sound “wrong” even
the
ones with the asterisks. In fact, they seem completely interchangeable
to me
regardless of contraction or an adjective of quantity. I have lived all
but 2
of my 59 years in Texas. My parents grew up in Tennessee, so we speak a
Southern US dialect.</font></p>
<font size="2"><span style="font-family: courier new,monospace;">Mark Brooks </span><br><br><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">----------</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><br>
<span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">From: </span><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="gI"><span class="gD" style="color: rgb(0, 104, 28);"><a href="mailto:KarlRein@aol.com">KarlRein@aol.com</a></span></span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
<span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">Subject: </span><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="gI">LL-L "Grammar" 2010.03.17 (03) [EN]</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
<span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="gI"><br></span></font><font style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" color="#000000" face="Arial" size="2"><div>Dear Lowlanders:</div>
<div>Two things occur to me about this pedantic discussion about the
number of a
verb used with "a number of ....s" and the like:</div>
<div>1. While "there's" is easy to say and normal to hear, "there're"
is
clumsy at best. Therefore the latter is on the way out, as far as I can
see, because of phonetic issues, not syntactic issues..</div>
<div>2. While there is all this talk about "a number of ..." and "a few
of
...", further observation would show up other words referring to a
"collection
of ...", and usage varies according to the word. For instance, "a lot
of
my friends were invited" is a normal sequence, while "a lot of my
friends was
invited" falls into the category of "they was invited", that is,
substandard
English. Period. Similarly "a bunch of bananas" falls into a
different category. By talking about "a number of ..." and "a few ..."
is
fine, but only if we admit that the issue is about a couple of words and
their
usage, and that there are no conclusions to be drawn about the grammar
of the
English language as a whole. A whole slew of native speakers no doubt
agree with me. (Or, doesn't it? <img src="http://cdn-cf.aol.com/se/smi/0201d20638/01">)</div>
<div>Karl Reinhardt</div></font><font size="2"><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="gI"><br></span></font><div style="text-align: center;"><font size="2"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">===================================================</span><br style="color: rgb(102, 102, 102); font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
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