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What's correct here?

There has to be some people left after the flood.

There have to be some people left after the flood.

I assume "have" because "people" is plural but I'm confused now because I was told that some people is uncountable, so that would make it come with the singular verb tense.

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  • You are perfectly correct. Can you explain your confusion so that we may better help you?
    – Catija
    Commented Aug 6, 2015 at 5:51
  • Well I was told that some people is uncountable, so that would make it come with the singular verb tense.
    – Sohna
    Commented Aug 6, 2015 at 5:52

2 Answers 2

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People is a plural noun; it's used as the plural of 'person'. You use the plural form of a verb after it. So the correct sentence is:

There have to be some people left after the flood.

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  • +1 but good to note that the plural of 'person' can be 'persons' as well! :)
    – Maulik V
    Commented Aug 6, 2015 at 8:32
  • Maulik, My dear, you are right. What an upvote on an answer that was halwa!
    – Khan
    Commented Aug 6, 2015 at 9:36
  • I was in mood to upvote...that's it.. and there's nothing wrong in upvoting a 'right' answer! :) It just happened that way! This answer can be further improved explaining the difference between 'plural' and 'uncountable' which seems a real confusion to the OP!
    – Maulik V
    Commented Aug 6, 2015 at 12:42
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'People' is indeed uncountable - there's no way of saying if it's 5, 10, or 3.1415 persons. However, it is a plural, so we're assuming that a count of those left after the flood (if it was done) would be more than one.

Therefore, it doesn't matter what the exact number is. As long as we're assuming more than one person was left, you use 'have'.

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