Bob Miller wrote,
>Which of these is grammatically correct?
> "There have been a number of things."
>or
> "There has been a number of things."
>
>It always been my understanding that the verb should match the number
>of the subject. The subject is "a number", which is singular, so
>the correct verb is "has been".
>
> "There has been a letter."
> "There has been a number."
> "There has been a number of things."
>
>Microsoft Word (runs on Linux under Crossover Office) flags "has been"
>as an error but accepts "have been".
>
>Is Bill's own word processor wrong, or am I?
According to tradition, the second option ("There HAS been a number of
things") is correct.
However, these days grammarians are starting to warm up to the concept of
"notional agreement", which says that "a number of things", though
technically singular, is conceptually plural (like "many things" or
"several things"), and can take a plural verb.
Personally, I'm more of a traditionalist--I would prefer to write "there
HAS been...".
My suspicion is that Word is not detecting notional agreement, but merely
misidentifying "things" as the subject. (In fact, most of the Word
grammar checker suggestions I've seen have been wrong, and the few that
weren't technically wrong were pretty much useless. The problem isn't
limited to Word--I've never seen ANY grammar-checking software that could
produce useful suggestions.)
- Neil Parker
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