ST Alpha - ""There is a still a good number of people...." or "There still are a good number of people..."?" (Reading a Post)

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"There is a still a good number of people...." or "There still are a good number of people..."?

Posted by prayformojo (aka mayhem) Jun 19 '15, 05:16

googling this only murkifies this more

Responses:

is, isn't it? there is a number. take out the clauses and prepositional phrases and that's your answer. -- nm - amanda Jun 19, 05:33 7
- But isn't the object in question the "people". "There is people" isn't right. I thought "a number of" was just another modifier -- nm - oblique Jun 19, 05:40 6
  - the object is "number". "of people" is a descriptor. -- nm - amanda Jun 19, 05:45 5
    - t'other way around. - Reagen Jun 19, 06:39 4
      - Mara, where are you?! -- nm - con_carne Jun 19, 06:50 3
        
        FB. Sadly, we seem to have lost another wonderful person. -- nm - Krusty Jun 19, 06:51 2
        
        I was being... what's that thing where you're talking about a thing but you're really talking about another thing... - con_carne Jun 19, 06:54 1
        
        Haha! -- nm - Krusty Jun 19, 06:56
"are" My understanding is that "is" is for singulars and "are" is for plurals -- nm - oblique Jun 19, 05:25 10
- It's "is" though, since your subject isn't "people," it's "number." - con_carne Jun 19, 06:48 3
  - Flip it around. You don't say "A number of people has asked me". You say "A number of people *have* asked me". It is plural -- nm - oblique Jun 19, 07:01 2
    - OK, but in PFM's sentence, the the thing that is "good" are not the people, but the number -- nm* - con_carne Jun 19, 07:03 1
      - "a number of" is like "a lot of" or "three". It's an adjective. -- nm - Reagen Jun 19, 07:05
- Yup. And there takes its single/plural designation from the subject (in the case: people) -- nm - ty97 Jun 19, 05:41 5
  - Am I killfiled? ;-) -- nm - Krusty Jun 19, 05:43 4
    - haha, of course not. I have a problem of not reading the responses before I type. -- nm - ty97 Jun 19, 05:45 3
      - I'm just messing around. :-) -- nm - Krusty Jun 19, 05:46 2
        
        Don't you need to go tanning or something? -- nm - Shaun Jun 19, 05:49 1
        
        I hate you. - Krusty Jun 19, 05:51
There still are a good number of people. It's many people so it's plural and we use are when it's plural. -- nm* - Krusty Jun 19, 05:23

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"There is a still a good number of people...." or "There still are a good number of people..."?

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