[Ads-l] It were

[Jonathan Lighter]

I have heard similar constructions many times in recent years, though none
quite so blatant.

Ex.: "Lunch were hamburgers and fries."

It comes, I dare suggest, from a pre-conscious feeling that the verb should
agree with a vivid predicate rather than with a less vivid grammatical
subject.

If I ever came across the construction in a freshman theme between 1976 and
1990, or a non-freshman theme after that, it must have been awfully rare.
It seemed quite unfamiliar to me when I began to notice it. (Ca. 2005-2010?)

JL



On Thu, Sep 24, 2015 at 1:23 PM, Gordon, Matthew J. <GordonMJ at missouri.edu>
wrote:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       "Gordon, Matthew J." <GordonMJ at MISSOURI.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: It were
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Also, "it" is used as the dummy pronoun in that expletive construction in
> s=
> ome varieties of English though I think it unlikely to take plural
> agreemen=
> t with following NP.
>
> Matt
> ________________________________________
> From: American Dialect Society [ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] on behalf of
> Lauren=
> ce Horn [laurence.horn at YALE.EDU]
> Sent: Thursday, September 24, 2015 11:13 AM
> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> Subject: Re: It were
>
> > On Sep 24, 2015, at 12:01 PM, Cohen, Gerald Leonard <gcohen at MST.EDU>
> wrot=
> e:
> >
> > Fwiw, this is a standard construction in German: Es waren...
> > G. Cohen
>
> Or, given the uses of that German construction, you could invoke a Jerry
> Co=
> hen-style syntactic blend:  "It was Clinton supporters behind it" + "There
> =
> were Clinton supporters behind it".  (The "there" expletive/dummy in
> Englis=
> h, like the "es" expletive/dummy in German, takes plural agreement when it
> =
> stands in for a plural subject.)  On the other hand, maybe it was a
> typo/th=
> inko.
>
> LH
> > ________________________________________
> > Jonathan Lighter wrote (Thursday, September 24, 2015 5:34 AM):
> > Highly paid CNN anchor (slightly paraphrased from memory):
> > "It *were* Clinton supporters behind it, though not Clinton or her
> > campaign."
> > Emphasis in original.
> > JL
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