by Maeve Maddox
From Daily Writing Tips
In conversation we’d probably find
ourselves tongue-tied if we couldn’t begin sentences with the grammatical
subject there:
There are only three eggs left in the
refrigerator.
There’s a lot of traffic on the freeway
this morning.
In each example there begins the
sentence, but the true subjects– eggs and a lot of traffic –are
delayed until after the verb.
There is nothing grammatically wrong
with this construction. Did you notice that I just wrote a sentence beginning
with “There is”? Simply placing the true subject first would create Yoda-speak:
Nothing grammatically wrong with this
construction is.
Rewriting an expletive sentence (the
kind that begins with a subject place-holder like “There”) requires a little
more effort than simple reversal. That’s probably why we let so many of them
creep into our first drafts.
Compare the following:
There is research that shows that
phonics is the most important component of beginning reading.
Research shows that phonics is the most
important component of beginning reading.
Not only is the delayed subject pattern
wordy, but it can also lead to a lack of subject-verb agreement. Here are some
examples from websites offering professional services:
There’s good reasons EmCare is the
industry leader
There’s areas of freezing
drizzle/mist out there this afternoon.
There’s schooling costs, there’s health
costs and they’ll continue to be provided out of the centres for those who are
being temporarily resettled…(This was a government minister.)
Informal conversation is one thing, but
writing for a professional purpose is something else again. If the “There is”
opener is the preferred stylistic choice, then the delayed subject should agree
with the verb that precedes it:
