"Here's a few items"--grammatical query

[Margaret Lee]

It is grammatically incorrect (unacceptable) accordng to thr rules of Standard English; nonetheless, it is grammatical (can be understood).

"Arnold M. Zwicky" <zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU> wrote:On Jul 31, 2005, at 9:31 AM, Gerald Cohen wrote:

> I was asked yesterday about the sentence "Here's a few items,"
> said frequently by a local radio announcer. Why not "Here are a
> few items?"
> My gut feeling is that "Here's a few items" *should* be
> ungrammatical but is nevertheless acceptable. But if "Here's a few
> items" is acceptable, is "Here is a few items" (with "is" rather
> than the apostrophe + s) also acceptable?

not for most people. similarly for "there is" (vs. "there's", which
occurs frequently with plurals).

arnold


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