There is + [plural]

[tootsieroll]

I'm not sure if this has already been discussed. Hearing people say 'there's', followed by a plural, e.g. 'there's two geese in the pond or there's many cars on the road', is simply driving me insane. I find myself correcting my family, much to their annoyance, but just about everyone is doing it these days. Am I right or has the English language developed to accepting this as correct grammar?

I do catch myself saying it, but wouldn't write it (I hope),

You're absolutely right, and don't let your family get away with it. They will thank you for it one day...

i'm guilty of this, but also hope i would correct it if I was writing it

Thank you! There's just to many people doing this mistake these days!

No prizes for spotting the typos

It's a full on problem here in Australia - and I think maybe in some NE London areas too. My boss in the UK, an otherwise well educated woman, had serious problems with saying things like "they was", "we was" etc. She was brought up in Tottenham; her DH was the same and he was from the London/Essex border.

There is, I find, more confusion when talking about a group of things - because there are still many things, but it's a group - so people use the "group" form (singular) when they should be using the many form (plural). Maybe.

omg, my pet hate. Very pleased I'm not alone. MIL - again a fairly well educated and otherwise well spoken woman,constantly says "we was" and asks my dc "was[n't] we"
Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

Ah yes, I die a little every time I hear it. As thumbwitch said, it is indeed in plague proportions in Australia, and I have just about given up. I think it will end up being acceptable as it it is so widespread. If you think about it, "il y a" in French is the same for singular or plural objects, isn't it? Maybe there's some logic /precedent to it?

But the French are mad and have no word for "today". Actually the worst thing about French is that the word for "wife" is the same as "woman"- "husband" and "man" are different, of course! How do they get away with that?

The presenters on Cbeebies are all doing it, which leaves no hope for my DC. I correct DH whenever he says it, and it has led to rows as he feels I undermine him in front of DC whenever I do it, so now I don't, at least not on every single occasion . The worst thing about it is that my in-laws do it too, and they're a highly educated bunch, graduates from Oxbridge with PhDs (an extremely pedant family really). I think I'll just get some ear plugs so I can avoid hearing them when they come visit next week .

I probably do say "there's more than that", "I think there's about 12 of them now" etc
But you're right - it's wrong.
I'm going to try and be more mindful of it now.

"...the French are mad and have no word for "today"".

So what does aujourd'hui mean then?

That is indeed what it means, but it isn't one word, just as "il y a" is a bit bizarrely complicated. As for "il n'y a pas" instead of "there isn't"... says it all.

Erm, why is that more complicated?

Today in English looks very much as if it started out as two words as well. It just has no apostrophe.