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duplication
Jan 12, 2019 04:07
5 yrs ago
1 viewer *
English term

was or were？

English Art/Literary Poetry & Literature
In "On the little table next to the bed was a hot cup of coffee and an empty cup", is "was" correctly used? Why or why not?

To a non-native ear, it should have been written as "were".

It is from this webpage:

Love or Money - With Audio Level 1 Oxford Bookworms Library

https://books.google.com/books?isbn=0194631826 - 翻译此页
Rowena Akinyemi - 2014 - ‎Foreign Language Study
Suddenly there was a cry from the room next to Roger's, his mother's room. ... On the little table next to the bed was a hot cup of coffee and an empty cup.
Responses
3 +8 were*
4 +5 There was / Stood
4 either
Votes to reclassify question as PRO/non-PRO:

Non-PRO (1): Lara Barnett

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Discussion

Lara Barnett Jan 14, 2019:
Tense Could it be the use of tense that is causing so much divided opinion? How about "cup of coffee HAD BEEN put/placed on the..." or whatever. ??
B D Finch Jan 14, 2019:
Punctuation and what follows "On the little table next to the bed was a hot cup of coffee and ... [significant, pregnant pause] an empty cup!" Both cups had contained poison, but only Morton, whose lifeless body lay on the floor by the bed, had drunk. From this, we can deduce that Fleetfoot, hearing footsteps outside the door, had no time to dispose of the incriminating second cup before making his escape through the window.

Or something along those lines?

Re Helena's distinction between "substitute" and "replace". That certainly applies to players in a team, but I agree with Charles about the more general usage.
Charles Davis Jan 12, 2019:
@Helena That's interesting; I've never heard of that distinction.

As far as I'm concerned, if you have been using A and you start using B instead, you have replaced A with B or substituted B for A. I think these are synonymous. You can also say that B replaces A or that B sustitutes for A.
Helena Chavarria Jan 12, 2019:
OT: substitute/replace A couple of years ago I wasn't sure of the difference between the words and I read that 'substitute' is often used for a temporary substitution and 'replace' for a permanent replacement. That's the rule I follow now.
Chris Ellison Jan 12, 2019:
@Charles Brexit referendum? *snigger*
Darius Saczuk Jan 12, 2019:
@Charles Yes. I was referring to the singular noun "cup".

More Food For Thought
https://www.thoughtco.com/proximity-agreement-grammar-169169...
"Grammarians have also observed that certain constructions 'sound right' to educated native speakers of English, even though the constructions defy formal or notional agreement. Such expressions exemplify the principle of attraction (or proximity), under which the verb tends to take the form of the closest subject:
For those who attended the second day of the annual meeting, there was an early morning panel and afternoon workshops.
But as [Merriam-Webster's Dictionary of English Usage] cautions, 'Proximity agreement may pass in speech and other forms of unplanned discourse; in print it will be considered an error.'"
(Amy Einsohn, The Copyeditor's Handbook. Univ. of California Press, 2006)
Charles Davis Jan 12, 2019:
Any time you read that over 50% of people think X, just whisper the words "Brexit referendum"...
Charles Davis Jan 12, 2019:
Usage surveys As it happens, I don't like "substituted by/with" either and I don't use it. I would use "replaced" there. But of course "substitute for" is a completely different issue; that is how the verb "substitute" is normally used. By conflating the two, and introducing the irrelevant question of sport ("substitute for" is neither more nor less acceptable or normal in sport than in other contexts), this usage panel demonstrates a disturbing degree of muddled thinking. And so it often tends to be when speakers arbitrate on usage on their own language. Reflecting analytically on linguistic usage requires training as well as general intelligence, and I give more weight to the views of those who have that training.

Just over half the panel disapproved of saying that the goalie was substituted? Why, for goodness sake? They must be mad.
Björn Vrooman Jan 12, 2019:
Also There is this list, which may be a bit OT right now but is still a good fit:
https://blog.oxforddictionaries.com/2015/03/18/7-grammar-myt...

I especially like the comment about "whose" (and note the use of "sticklers," ha ha).

"Yes, you can use whose to refer to things, not only people or groups of people. Sometimes, sticklers will insist upon rearranging the sentence using of which."

Have a great weekend
Björn Vrooman Jan 12, 2019:
In the end,... ...the point is to be understood. I find usage panels very helpful, though I only know one such panel for American English (American Heritage Dictionary) and the guidelines by the Associated Press (most of my work involves news stories in some form).

E.g., substitute:
"But people sometimes say Butter is substituted by [or with] applesauce. This use of substitute is widely criticized, and most of the Usage Panel dislikes it: in our 2013 survey, 80 percent disapproved of this sentence with the preposition by, and 67 percent disapproved of it with with. In sports, however, one often encounters the less standard use of substitute, where the old player is substituted for the new one rather than vice versa. The Usage Panel is more accepting of such usage in this context; in 2013, just over half the Panel (56 percent) disapproved of the sentence The goalie allowed three goals in the first 12 minutes and was substituted before the end of the period."
https://www.thefreedictionary.com/substitute

As said, these are guidelines, but they are useful to determine whether your readers will start writing letters to the editor (does happen) :)
Charles Davis Jan 12, 2019:
PS I have great respect for Fowler and varying degrees of respect for other self-appointed guardians of prescriptive correctness, but I generally tend to ignore them and seek guidance from professional grammarians.
Charles Davis Jan 12, 2019:
@Björn Yes, that's quite true. I don't know whether it would have been a better solution, but certainly the singular would have been uncontroversial in that case.
Björn Vrooman Jan 12, 2019:
PS If the writer had used, instead of "and," another linking word, such as along with or together with, we wouldn't even be talking about this:
https://www.grammar.com/subjects-joined-by-other-connectors

Personally, I think that would have been a better soluton than trying to change the verb altogether.

Best
Charles Davis Jan 12, 2019:
I don't think the difference between "there's" and "there is" is decisive in this context and I don't agree that it can be done with the former but never with the latter. The point is simply that the singular here is informal, and in informal speech contractions are nearly always used, so it will be unusual to find this with "there is", though in principle it could happen; occasionally, for various reasons, the contraction may not be used in informal speech. And here, with a past tense ("there was"), contraction is not possible, so the point doesn't arise.

Inversion is sometimes acceptable in EN. I think it is here.

I did ask about whether the singular can be rationalised. What I'm saying is that the informal singular verb after implied existential there is one way of rationalising it and ellipsis is a different one; the former doesn't entail the latter. And there are or may be others, as I've suggested.
Björn Vrooman Jan 12, 2019:
Hello Charles Yes, I tried to limit the scope of my argument to Fowler's etc. because I too don't think anyone would have a problem with it one way or the other.

Here's Cambridge:
"In speaking and in some informal writing, we use there’s even when it refers to more than one."
https://dictionary.cambridge.org/grammar/british-grammar/the...

There's no mention of "there is" (i.e., the non-contracted version) being used in informal writing. If I remember correctly, Fowler agreed: there's can be followed by singular and plural, while "there is" cannot.

And, yes, if this is about informal usage, I think it may make some people "squirm" (see comments) because of the prepositional phrase plus inversion (a literary device, I know, but it does sound a bit awkward to me as well). I hate this type of inversion, by the way, because it's what Germans do all the time and it's sometimes hard to decide whether it'd be acceptable in EN too.

"You do not need to posit ellipsis to justify it."

Maybe not, but you did ask whether the "singular can be rationalised" =)

Best wishes
Charles Davis Jan 12, 2019:
@Björn Use of a singular form of the verb after existential there, even when the following "notional subject" is plural, is well recognised and uncontroversial among grammarians, though of course informal. Speakers effectively treat existential there as the subject.

If you interpret "was" here as "there was", it would be normal informal usage:
"on the table there was a hot cup of coffee and an empty cup". I think many (most?) people would find this normal and natural, at least in informal speech, and would not insist on "there were a hot cup of coffee and an empty cup". You do not need to posit ellipsis to justify it.

I think this interpretation could reflect what was going on in the speaker's mind.
Björn Vrooman Jan 12, 2019:
I too... ...thought it was about informal use of there is/there are/there's.

However, while "there's" is acceptable in informal speech (to Fowler's and others, at least), "there is" in place of "there are" is not, AFAIK.

There could be another solution, though, and that is ellipsis, but that would sound more acceptable to me if "there" was present:
On the little table next to the bed, there was a hot cup of coffee and [there was] an empty cup.

Almost like "There was Tom, and Peter, and Harry!"

Seems like some speakers of UK English agree:
https://forum.wordreference.com/threads/there-was-john.32225...

Best
Chris Ellison Jan 12, 2019:
Sounds like speech I like the explanation Charles has given us. As a side note, I wonder if it's an attempt to give the text the immediacy of the spoken word. These kinds of grammatical errors abound in native speech, particularly in typical language chunks - think: "There's.... erm... three on the table." Authors habitually break rules to add colour to their texts. 😊
Charles Davis Jan 12, 2019:
This looks like a straightforward case of a coordinated subject: the coordinated units, the hot cup of coffee and the empty cup, do not appear to be a single reference. Therefore the verb should be plural. Why, then, has the author made it singular? Perhaps, after all, the close relationship between the full and the empty cups (I initially wrote "the full and the empty cup", which may itself be significant) leads the speaker to conceptualise them unconsciously as a single entity: "coffee paraphernalia". Perhaps the order of the sentence might have an influence; whereas you might say "a hot cup of coffee and an empty cup were on the little table", because by the time you use the verb you have already expressed a plural subject, here the adverbial phrase comes first, so the verb is expressed before the subject, and it seems momentarily awkward to say "...were an empty cup...". I think this is what Dariusz means where he refers to the proximity of a singular noun. Or perhaps it is simply that the hot cup of coffee, to the speaker, is the important object and the empty cup is an afterthought ("and by the way there was also an empty cup").

Responses

+8
1 hr
Selected

were*

Explanation:

To start with, many modern grammarians avoid using the term "correct". Instead, they prefer to use the term "acceptable to native speakers" (based on surveys, for instance)". According to the prescriptive rule, singular nouns joined with "and" take a plural verb (unless treated as a single unit). Thus, "a cup and a plate were on the table" but "cream and chocolate is my favorite dessert". However, millions of native speakers might prefer to use "was" in this case due to the proximity of a singular noun.
Peer comment(s):
agree philgoddard : I think "was" is just plain wrong.
1 hr
Hi, Phil. Thanks.
agree Charles Davis
4 hrs
Thank you, Charles.
agree Charlotte Fleming : “Were”, definitely. “Was” makes me squirm in this context.
7 hrs
;-). Thank you, Charlotte.
agree Thayenga : With Charlotte and Phil. It has to be "were". :)
8 hrs
Thank you, Thayenga.
agree Sarah Lewis-Morgan
10 hrs
Thank you, Sarah.
agree danya
2 days 6 hrs
Thank you, Danya.
agree B D Finch
2 days 7 hrs
Kind thanks.
agree writeaway
6 days
Thank you, writeaway.
Something went wrong...
4 KudoZ points awarded for this answer.
+5
2 hrs

There was / Stood

I think the sentence sounds very clumsy using either version. I would say:

"..., his mother's room. ... On the little table next to the bed THERE WAS a hot cup of coffee and ANOTHER empty cup."

OR

"..., his mother's room. ... On the little table next to the bed STOOD a hot cup of coffee and an empty cup."


--------------------------------------------------
Note added at 2 days 8 hrs (2019-01-14 12:17:57 GMT)
--------------------------------------------------

or even "had been placed on the ...."
Peer comment(s):
agree katsy
1 hr
Thank you.
agree Jo Macdonald : stood
2 hrs
Thank you.
neutral Charles Davis : "Stood" is fine, but would it be "stand" or "stands" in the present? Can the singular be rationalised? // No, I'm imagining what would be said in a different context, addressing the grammatical point that the speaker is asking about.
2 hrs
But the text begins in the past, i.e. "Suddenly there was a cry from t..." are you suggesting it should change tense?
agree Tina Vonhof (X) : Stood sounds more natural to me than were.
14 hrs
Thank you.
agree Christine Andersen : If you said ´there were two cups´ it would have to be ´were´, but to my ear ´was´is fine here. It is not always easy to fit logic to a situation like this without overkill! That is just how lots of natives would say it...
1 day 3 hrs
Thank you. You have well explained what I was not able to. (re. logic)
agree British Diana
1 day 12 hrs
Thank you.
Something went wrong...
7 days

either

as a general statement in UK English, I think that "was" is OK.

"On the little table next to the bed was a hot cup of coffee and an empty cup", or
"On the little table next to the bed there was a hot cup of coffee and an empty cup".

In this sentence I think that "were" sounds OK only in the first line.
Something went wrong...
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