Timeline for There are vs are there
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
4 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Apr 13, 2015 at 16:50 | comment | added | Man_From_India | @FumbleFingers There is/are so many people per mile explains which is the correct verb. I agree with you. | |
| Apr 13, 2015 at 15:55 | comment | added | FumbleFingers | @Man_From_India: It seems to me that with, say, Nowhere in the United States is so nice (or even just Nowhere is nicer), the word nowhere (whether further qualified or not) is the syntactic "subject". And it's singular, which is why the verb form becomes is there. In OP's context, as you originally commented, the correct verb form is are (imho because the subject is plural people, which I think makes this answer incorrect). | |
| Apr 13, 2015 at 15:35 | comment | added | FumbleFingers | I'd have thought the syntactic "subject" in OP's context is so many people per square mile - as seems more obvious if you reorder and simplify to So/that many people [per square mile] are in NJ [but nowhere else]. | |
| Apr 13, 2015 at 15:00 | history | answered | LawrenceC | CC BY-SA 3.0 |