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

[Arnold M. Zwicky]

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